May 18. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
115 
a bad thing for the plants, and worse still when yon 
have to step over to any particular plants once or twice 
! a week, to see something or do something about the 
flower, as crossing, budding, watching a new seedling, 
or any other of the hundred errands which none of us 
can be exempt from in a flower-garden; besides the 
bad effects of this treading on beds and borders, there 
is the wet day and the sloppy weather, in which you 
dftnnot make your usual visit without messing your 
feet, and catching cold, in addition to the damage to 
the soil and plants by the treading. There are two or 
three clumsy ways of getting over all this, but I saw 
one the other day, in the Crescent near me, which is the 
best and most useful of all the plans that I have yet 
seen or heard of for protecting beds, borders, knees, 
anckles, and thin soles, from all the harm, disagrecable- 
ness, and dangers, incident to and inseparable from our 
' profession. And what might this be, think you ? Just a 
piece of cork as wide as the crown of a hat, and as thick as 
the inch “ deal hoard,” through which Rob Roy’s son could 
drive the dirk ; but this thin piece of cork may be of 
any shape, say a slice fifteen inches long, and five or 
1 six wide, to place one foot on while the other foot may 
' rest on the grass or gravel, or two such pieces, where the 
distance is farther than one single step from the side; 
with the two pieces you can bud roses just after a 
shower without soiling you boots; they are, in fact, 
detached cork soles. A piece as round as a full moon, 
and ten or twelve inches in diameter, is just the thing 
to kneel on, or rather to rest one knee ou, while you 
are training shoots along the ground, layering Carna¬ 
tions, and what not, and so on, for every conceivable 
“ position,” in the acts of stooping, striding, haunch- 
ing, heeling, and kneeling; they are carried about by 
a string fastened to a corner, or side, or middle, and by 
a loop end to the string; an aged gardener could remove 
them and take them anywhere with the hook end of his 
walking-stick, and, moreover, I was told, a piece of thin 
cork is the best thing in the world to place before a hot 
bath, to stand on after coming out of the bath, and 
that if you only just wet it with warm water there is no 
fear of catching cold from standing on it for ever so 
long. 
A NEW DRAINAGE. 
To return to hard balls of earth turned out of pots; 
and, after giving a filial warning against planting them 
entire, let me tell of a new kind of ball, which I have 
just seen for the first time, and of which I highly 
approve—so much so, that I would advise every reader 
of The Cottage Gardener to have lots of the same 
kind for next year, and to begin the manufacture of 
them at once. About this new ball. Does it not seem 
curious, that a young, active gardener, in full practice 
at home, should have invented such a hall for pots and 
pot-plants, just at the time when the soldiers want so 
many cannon-balls, and when the old rifle-ball is to be 
thrown aside? Re that as it may; as far as I am able 
to judge, and firmly believe, this new ball is the most 
useful invention we have had in gardening for the last 
twenty years; and I have little fear but they will be 
made in every potting-shed in the three kingdoms, and 
as far beyond as The Cottage Gardener travels. 
Like many more of the really useful discoveries, this 
one was hit on by the merest chance, just as the 
Epacris compost was found to suit the Golden Chain 
Geranium by a long fellow who misunderstood my 
orders for potting them. My young friend, the dis¬ 
coverer of the new ball, ran out of crocks one day last 
autumn, when he was potting some cuttiugs of green¬ 
house Geraniums, and being in a hurry, what does he 
do but reached across the potting-bench, and took a 
handful of shreds which he nailed his fruit-trees with, 
and put them in the bottom of his last pots for drainage. 
After a while he forgot all about it; but, before the 
turn of the new year, he could see that some of his 
store-pots, or rather the plants in them,.were looking so 
much better than all the rest; and ou turning one out, 
he saw at once that the shreds for drainage made all the 
difference. I have one of these pots now in my posses- ( 
sion, and I am so satisfied with the advantage that may 
be expected from the use of woollen rags, or shreds, for I 
potted-plants, that I shall use them over crocks, and mixed 
with the different composts for all my pot-plants. I have 
often seen how roots increased among broken bones, 
chips of soft stone, or brick, and in charcoal, but 
nothing like the quantity and vigour of both root and 
stem and leaf in this pot with shred drainage did ever 
I see before. 
I would recomend all the old shreds about a garden 
to be saved as carefully as the best fertilizers, to be at hand 
for ready use when potting is going on ; then to only use 
one or two crocks over the hole in the pot, and to put 
over them one or two inches of these shreds for extra 
drainage, and for feeding the roots, and in all pots 
above the size of forty-eights, to mix a few of the 
shreds in the compost, as charcoal or hones are used at 
present. I am satisfied that their value is already 
fully proved, and no one need hesitate to use them. 
It will be a matter of future experiments how far we 
may go in steeping the shreds in liquid-manures for 
still farther adding to their usefulness. .D. Beaton. 
VINES IN GREENHOUSES BECOMING 
UNFRUITFUL. 
Many complaints of this nature liavo reached us. 
It was passingly alluded to the other week. Several 
cases have come under our own observation, in which 
amateurs, after having a plentiful crop for years, and 
even taking away first prizes at exhibitions in the 
month of September, have been deeply mortified that 
they could obtain nothing to exhibit. In several of 
these cases, incidental circumstances pointed to a palli¬ 
ative, if not a complete, remedy. In each the fashion¬ 
able mode of spur-pruning had been resorted to, and 
the strongish shoots came next to totally deficient in 
that for which they were cared for —bunches ; many of 
these, after showing, dwindling away, or twisting up into 
tendril-like matter. In several of these instances, it 
was found desirable to take up or grow a fresh shoot, in J 
order to increase the space occupied by an esteemed j 
variety; and in each of these circumstances that have 
come under my notice, whilst the main old stems have 
been almost barren, these young shoots, reduced to a 
third or a half of their length, produced shoots from 
their buds that were well supplied with handsome 
bunches. This fact would seem to point to the long- 
rod, or the successive-rod system, as a palliative to an j 
evil which often exists when the spur-pruuing mode is | 
carefully followed for some eight or ten years. 
For the sake of the uninitiated, allow me to explain, 
in a few words, the outlines of these various modes of 
growth, as respects general culture. What is called the 
spur mode of pruning, is generally best adapted for 
greenhouses, because, one stem being taken up each 
rafter, there are spaces wide enough for permitting a 
fair amount of light to get into the house. The exact 
time in which such a main stem is permitted to reach 
the top of the house depends on circumstances and the 
strength of the vine. Let us suppose that it be three j 
years. In the first winter’s pruning after planting the 
young shoot is cut down within a few feet of the bottom j 
of the rafter. Every bud is supposed to break, and of 
these the shoots from them are retained right and left, 
as many as may be deemed necessary; and if they show 
fruit are stopped at the joint before it, and if they do 
