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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION.— May 20, 1856. 
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liis borders were scarcely fifteen inches in depth, and 
one-half of this was above the ordinary ground level; 
the borders made, if I rightly remember, almost entirely 
of turfy, light loam, the parings and edgings of drives 
and roads in an old park. Now, with such facts before 
us, what sensible man can think of making a border or 
bed a yard or more in depth ? Or who can defend the 
introduction of so much manurial matters as is too often 
practised ? All kinds of organic manures are liable to 
attain very similar conditions, through age, to the old tan 
before quoted; that is to say, to become, in a very few 
years, a kind of greasy liumus, retentive of moisture. 
1 should much like to hear a correct and impartial 
history of some of those borders in which dead horses, 
dogs, and other carrion, played so prominent a part 
lialf-a-score years since. If I mistake not, some of these 
charnel-house borders must by this time be in an awk 
ward plight. I much fear a similar fate may have over¬ 
taken some Vine borders, made a dozen years since, 
specially with a view to produce those bouncing exhibi¬ 
tion Grapes which make so much noise. I do not 
suppose that all good gardeners, who desire to exhibit 
Grapes, glut their borders with an over-mount of ma¬ 
nure, thus perilling permanency for the sake of off-hand 
fame. I make the observation, because I have known 
some do this; indeed, one poor fellow, now no more in 
this world, confessed to me, that what between very 
grassy turf and strong rank manures, his newly-made 
border smoked like a cucumber-bed for weeks ! 
After such considerations, it is surely not too much to 
infer, that the aptitude of soils to receive the benefits 
arising from the sun’s influence is of paramount con¬ 
sideration as concerns the Vine; and that deep soils, 
over-adhesive loams, and those organic matters which 
are of a highly manurial character, and which become, 
with age, moisture-holders, are averse to the ready re¬ 
ception of such influence. And what may we fairly 
expect from Vines whose roots are for weeks, during 
May and June, in a temperature of about 50° to 55°, 
whilst their leaves and branches are enjoying an average 
of 00° to 70° ? I speak here of the roots in deep bor¬ 
ders. We all know that the soil out-of-doors, in April, 
May, and June, is, in its averages by nature, nearly 
half-a-dozen degrees below the average atmospheric 
heat; but wlien we come to a dozen or more, the dis¬ 
crepancy becomes rather striking, and we begin, very 
naturally, to wonder how far Nature’s laws may be 
tampered with. 
Vine buds, in March or April, or, if you will, earlior, 
show a disposition, when the bunches first show, to 
cause those cherry-looking embryos to threaten to be 
forced to become tendrils. All this may be very interest¬ 
ing to the man of science, as a morphological curiosity; 
even as “ I heard our good Doctor palaver one day,” to 
use the language of one of Dibdin’s celebrated songs, 
“ Poor Jack.” The Doctor’s palaver, excuse me, con¬ 
sisted in calling the cutting off of a limb from an un¬ 
fortunate fellow-creature—“ a most interesting case.” 
But these poor Vines—why show this tendency ? And 
then, as before observed, there is the pimple, or blotch; 
in other words, those raised and puckered surfaces on 
Vine leaves which look like some disease, and, verily, it 
may be; but how came we by it? Our Doctor talks in 
a most learned way about predisposition. Here we 
have a case of, at least, indisposition. Well, then there 
is what they call long-jointed Vines. I am not aware 
that the latter ailment ever occurs with weakly Vines, 
unless they be injudiciously subjected to very high night 
temperature. Now, in regard of the roots of Vines, 
which, I need scarcely urge, are very susceptible of 
injury, as they may well be, seeing they are not in¬ 
digenous to our climate;—there may be, at least, two 
distinct evils which hurt them occasionally, viz., general 
torpidity of root-action, filfulness in rooting; and these 
two features, as concerns the root, may have certain 
collateral bearings, of which I feel bound to say some¬ 
thing. General torpidity of the root can only arise from 
low temperature, or from a bad texture of soil. To 
suppose a soil too barren for the free rooting of the 
Vine, would be to stretch our case unnecessarily; and 
to imagine some pernicious qualities existent, is to go 
wider still of our point. 
Temperature, as dependent on texture, I have before 
alluded to. As to barrenness of soil—those who are 
conversant with the history of British Vine culture 
in doors during the last score or two years, will scarcely 
attribute the many failures we have heard of to poverty 
of soil. But who can, for a moment, imagine that Vine 
roots will luxuriate in the same degree and with the 
same amount of freedom three feet from the earth’s 
surface as they will within a foot? and if they will not, 
pray what can bo the character and mode of action ot 
those low-level roots? Why, they are weeks later in 
reciprocating with the foliage; and at the very period 
when their assistance is needed they are sound asleep, 
or about to awaken. The results of such a condition of 
tilings I have frequently noticed in other trees than the 
Vine : Apples, Pears, and such like, where spade-culture 
has been carried on over their roots. At the very period, 
say July, when they should have performed the chief 
amount of their agencies, they are in the humour to 
throw a vast amount of fluids into the system of the 
tree, which has by this time lost the vigour which pro¬ 
duces early and strong growths. R. Errington. 
WHAT IS A VARIETY ?—ORIGIN OF PELAR¬ 
GONIUMS.—SOWING L1NUM GRANDIFLO- 
RUM.—PROPAGATING BEDDING PLANTS. 
We shall soon see if the little bonnets are to have 
the third year’s run of the fashion. But what would you 
say of dear granny's bonnet, which has lasted and out¬ 
lived all the fashions since 17!)] ? Why, that it has the 
odds against all the flower-beds which stood it out with¬ 
out a change since the year 1831, when the first three 
whole beds of one kind of plants were planted, for the 
first time, both in England and Scotland, although each 
country had its one bed of “ bedding plants” seven 
years before that time, which brings us back to 1824, 
when the most expert cross-breeders of the day were in 
the height of their ambition, engaged in crossing the 
wild Geraniums of the Cape; but there were breeders 
in this line many years before then, and one of then- 
crosses, of whose parents no traces are left to us, is still 
the best bedding Geranium of that section called Nose¬ 
gays. The Pink Nosegay, our present purplish-pink 
Nosegay Geranium, is the Pelargonium Fothergillii of 
Sweet’s Geraniacem, and of all the best arrangements of 
them since that day to this. 
Sweet, who reared immense quantities of seedlings of 
them, must have been led astray, after a vain fancy of 
his own, about legitimacy of species. Every plant 
which comes true from seeds was universally believed 
at that time to be a true species, when be named 
Fothergillii, and that led him into another error in as¬ 
signing a Cape of Good Hope origin to this plant, which 
is the best of our earliest crosses in the family. It was 
raised about the same time as Hippeastrurn (Amaryllis) 
Johnsonii (1810), by a person of the name of Green, but 
that is all I kuow of him. The plant was sold for 
some years under the name of Green's Seedling, and. 
very probably, some of the men in “Lee's Nursery,” 
or at Pine Apple Place, may remember it as Green's 
Seedling ; hut Sweet says, it was called The Nosegay, for 
some years before he published a figure of it. He hums 
and ha’s a good deal about it; but altliopgh be does not 
