September 5. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
435 
north aspect, would be a preferable position to the 
greenhouse. In either of these circumstances, if common 
red pots are used, it will be advisable to screen them 
from the sun's rays in summer, and to plunge them to 
escape frost in winter. It should, however, be borne 
in mind, that many of our best growers in pots fruit 
only in the third season from the eye, and do little more 
with them, because thoy prefer younger Vines to those 
older; while others, more expeditious, grow one year 
and fruit the next; but make little or no more use ot 
such plants. For instance, from buds inserted from 
the beginning of February, I have had good crops in 
May twelvemonth, or little more than fifteen months; 
but then every attention that hotbed and pit could 
render was given to them. Such a thiug could not be 
done with the assistance of a greenhouse alone. Allowing 
you had tho assistance of a cucumber box to start your 
buds, it would require two summers’ growth before you 
could expect wood strong enough to fruit in the third 
: summer. A friend of ours, who does Vines in pots 
very well, told me his plants have fruited beautifully 
this season; but this was the third summer of all his 
plants, and he rarely fruits them younger, or a second 
time, without, at least, giving them one season’s growth 
to renew them. 
2. “I have noticed how some half-dozen or more 
bunches, in good condition, are exhibited, growing in 
pots, at the Metropolitan exhibitions. I think of trying 
Vine-culture in pots, on the score of economy ; but would 
! like your opinion on the matter, before I so tar com¬ 
mitted myself to the system, by obtaining a dozen or two 
i of plants fit for fruiting next year. It seems to me, I 
j should have a house of fruit, instead of so much ot it 
| being now taken up with leaves. Of course, the plants 
when procured, with a little advice, would be equally 
fruitful year after year.” I fear that the conclusion of 
the last paragraph will have done much to damp the 
ardour of all such aspiratious in an economical point of 
view. I have no notion whatever of the economy of 
Vine-culture in pots, when carried out in a wholesale 
way, and a house, or houses, are to be devoted to that 
object alone; though it may, and is often desirable and 
economical to bring in a number of plants so cultivated 
as adjuncts, and for definite, more than economical, 
purposes. 
I Let us just glance at some of the reasons why its 
general adoption would not be economical. You 
would require large pots or boxes to ensure plants 
fruiting year after year, as a certain luxuriance in 
! the wood of a vine, as well as its being well ripened, is 
necessary to its continued fecundity, and this would also 
i presuppose very moderate crops, as from six to twelve 
| bunches a year generally so monopolizes the organisable 
! matter of the plant, that it breaks and shows very in- 
1 differently the next. Allow that, by moderate cropping, 
; and a proper system of lateral removing, and disbudding 
gradually, as some time ago recommended, you contrive 
j to keep your plants in a fruitful state, year after year, 
how many more buds and eyes can you expose to the 
full agency of light from Vines in pots than from Vines 
on rafters? I ask not whether your edifice be pit or 
I house, lean-to roof or span roof; but this I say, that 
' you can depend little on the wood of this year fruiting in 
i the next if the foliage has not been exposed to the full 
i agency of light. Our friend seems to calculate how 
j many plants his pits or shelves would hold, trained 
| similarly as they are exhibited, and then at once rushes 
] to the conclusion—What a weight of Grapes I shall 
| have! Now, though by moving pot-plants round fre 
I quently, a greater number of Vines may be fruited in 
j a place than it is possible to submit to direct Sun- 
j light, it cannot be too clearly and forcibly enunciated, 
I that in preparing these Vines for fruiting, the uuob- 
1 structed access of the foliage to direct light, and con¬ 
sequent fruitfulness, are, to a great extent, cause and 
consequence of each other. 
From some notes that have reached me, it would 
appear that some friends are apt to get into error, by 
carrying to an extreme what has lately been said ol 
standard flowering plants, and what has and may yet 
be advanced of conical-shaped plants, &c., so far as to 
imagine they may have a house filled with standards, 
and yet have as many dwarfs in it as if there were 
none ; and that, provided the base of a conical-shaped 
plant was no wider than the base of a squat flat 
one, a sloping stage would contain and grow equally 
well as many of the one as of the other. Now, 
though a few standards in a light house could exercise 
no prejudicial influence, a thicket of them would soon 
make havoc of all plants beneath them, unless those 
that naturally delight in the shade; and though there 
will always be found suitable places for conical-shaped 
plants, yet neither upon flat table, or stage with sloping 
shelves, can an equal number of these tall plants receive 
an equal amount of light, with a similar number of 
equal-diametered-at-the-base squat ones; just because 
the tall ones will shade each other. The mere standing 
room will be the same in both cases—the access to light 
of the various parts of the plants wholly different. 
Just so with many who are anxious to try Vines in pots, 
or have tried, and find it anything but remunerative. One 
grows his Vines in wide pits, two or three rows of them, 
and never thinks the one shades the other. Another 
has Vines on his rafters, and a pit in his house that 
used to be employed for Pines; and in that pit, with a 
deep shade over them, he has grown Vines iu pots, with 
fairish stems and largish leaves; and then, when he 
tries to find these same plants, he wonders how he can¬ 
not get hold of the secret, so as to get fruit to come to 
his mind. That secret is just this, that in addition to 
good foliage and fair-sized wood there must be unshaded 
light acting on that foliage. “ Why, then, I could have : 
no'mor.e than one row of pots even in that pit, and 
bring the shoots so near the roof of glass as to have 
nothing above them ; what economy can there be in 
that? I might as well plant them out at once.’ I 
cannot help it—reported wonderful savings are often 
one thing; the result, all things considered, frequently 
very different. 
Again, so far as this economical aspect is concerned, 
I have been so far writing as if it was possible to fruit 
these plants, year after year, when thus obtaining direct 
access to light; and—though from sheor want of room I 
have not tried the plan for many years—I have no doubt 
it could be done, if only the half or tho third of the 
crop generally taken was considered sufficient, as I have 
several times proved. For instance, on a Muscadine, 
little more than a twelvemonth from the eye, I have had 
from eight to twelve tidy little bunches, but no coaxing 
would entice it to do any good the following year: while 
on other plants, somewhat similar, that were allowed to 
eftrry three or four bunches, the vigour and prolificacy 
did not seem at all diminished. So far as I am aware, 
however, this is not at all a mode that is adopted by 
those who principally follow the system, and, in lact, it 
would not greatly commend its adoption, unless to 
those who would grow everything in pots, as though 
six or eight bunches make a fine display, the half or i 
third of that number, unless very fine, would scarcely i 
arrest attention. As previously noticed, the common 
mode is to grow the plants one or two years from the 
bud; then fruit them, and then throw them away. Now, 
I know, personally, that it requires great care to get 
plants strong enough during one summer, and, I 
presume, that the success of two-year-old plants, that is, 
fruiting the third spring or summer after having two 
summers growth, will chiefly depend on the unshaded 
light the plant enjoys during the second season ; and, j 
