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TI 
IE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 17, 18o7. 
to write ” and. “Light.” hrom tiiese two woids 
(C 
photography ” is derived, signifying "writing 
by light.” Modern science lias shown that this 
name is not a correct one, the photographic power 
not depending on the degree of light proper. 
The effects of a ray of light are threefold, being 
luminous, heating, and chemical. It is with the 
chemical or actinic power of light the photographer 
has to do. The day may be bright. and tine and 
the glare intense, yet there may be little chemical 
action’. The weather may be cloudy, and the 
actinic influence great. The rays of the moon, 
though possessing great power of illumination and 
some actinism, contain no heat. 
The operating room of the photographer, though 
light enough for him to carry on all his manipula¬ 
tion, contains no chemical force, it being excluded by 
a yellow screen, with which the window is covered. 
‘ “ Actinogeaphy ” would be the proper word, 
but as so many of our old Saxon words [e. g., tele¬ 
graph, supplanted) have been of late corrupted oy 
Latin and Erenchisms, we cannot afford to lose 
another, and must keep to our old friend “ pho¬ 
tography.” 
We would recommend the photographic student 
to perfect himself in the “printing process” 
before proceeding to the higher branches of the 
art. 
Photographic printing enables us to obtain 
copies of a leaf, flower, engraving, &c., by the 
agency of a property of light. 
Let the reader obtain an ounce of bichromate of 
potash, and place it in a four-ounce phial of water. 
Then let him pour the solution into a saucer, and 
soak therein some pieces of ordinary writing paper. 
Upon putting one of these prepared papers in the 
sun, and placing a Lose or other leaf on the upper 
side, that portion of the paper around the leaf, and 
which is exposed to the action of the light, will be 
observed to darken. The leaf being removed, an 
impression will remain on the paper. Wash the 
pictures in clean water, when the bichromate will 
be dissolved from the unexposed part, leaving the 
form of the leaf sharp and clear. An engraving 
may be copied in the same way, but in this case 
the bichromate paper must be dried in the dark 
preparatory to exposure. 
The photograph thus produced is a negative 
one; that is, what was light in the original is 
dark in the photograph, and vice versa. 
(To be continued.) 
PRUNING THE VINE. 
If an astronomer were to discover a new planet, or a 
new satellite to one of the old ones, the rest of the 
astronomers could tell how fast it would go, and 
which way it would take, because they understand 
the science of astronomy, or the theory of the stars. 
Just so with vegetable physiologists. They know the 
science or theory of vegetable life, and by that science 
or theory they can tell to a certainty the conditions 
which are necessary for any new or old plant in order 
to yield its produce, be it wood, or fruit, or any other 
product, in a perfect state. The law which governs the 
stars is a fixed law, and not one star can wander from 
its course ; therefore astronomy is the easiest of all 
sciences to practise if once it be mastered. The science 
of vegetable life is as unalterable as that ot astronomy, 
but plants can be moved from one end of the earth 
to the other, or all round it, without end at all, and the 
“ natural conditions,” in respect to vegetable life and 
production, vary at each stage of the journey round the 
earth; therefore the practical application of the science 
of vegetable life is one of the most difficult things a 
man can undertake, except in that place and under 
those conditions which are natural' to a given plant. 
That being so, a boor may find out by chance the best 
way of managing a given plant, while the learned prac¬ 
tical man may spend the best years of his life in arriving 
at the same result. 
In England we have advanced so far on the journey 
that we can compete with all the nations of the world, 
and surpass them too, in the production ot forced 
Grapes, but as a nation we are not nearly so forward 
in our knowledge of the outdoor management of the 
Vine as our fathers were, and even as late as fifty or 
sixty years back; but those who are old enough to re¬ 
member the outdoor Grapes ot that period put the 
saddle on the wrong horse when they say the difference 
is owing to the change of the seasons. 
The Horticultural Society is old enough to remember 
outdoor Grapes coming to table just as good as the best 
greenhouse Grapes of the present day, for one of the 
Horticulturals told me the fact in Willis’s Room the other 
day. The difference, however, is not altogether in the 
seasons, but in the education of the present race of 
gardeners in respect to the Vine out of doors. Every 
attempt which has been made in my time to explain or 
encourage the cultivation of Grapes on the open walls 
of England has been more or less thwarted, uninten¬ 
tionally, by practical gardeners, and by men of science, 
both of whom, propounding wrong doctrines on the sub¬ 
ject of Vine culture out of doors, the practicals could 
anticipate no good result from any plan which differed 
from that which they found so productive under a high 
artificial stimulus; and science directed attention only to 
those rules which are infallibly, as it were, under natural 
conditions, and between the two we have little better 
than conjectures to guide our practice out of doors, while 
indoors practice and theory, perfectly sound both of 
them, seem as distant as the poles are asunder. 
The English gardener, by a long course of anxious 
experiments, has found out that the smallest number of 
leaves which he can leave for his bunches will secure 
him the first prize for Grapes ; and is it not natural that 
he should put much stress on his close priming? But 
under different “ conditions” the most backward of the 
nations of Europe, by mere dint of plodding industry, 
discovered that to cut a single leaf from the Vine was to 
cut so much from the profit of the vineyard—a new 
doctrine on this side of Europe; hut at this moment 
Russian boors are applying the strictest rules of ve¬ 
getable physiology to the cultivation of the Vine in the 
south-east of the Crimea, beginning twenty or thirty 
miles beyond Balaclava, and reaching nearly to Kertcli, 
the finest Vine district in Europe, and where the wine 
is too good for profitable commerce. It is largely dis¬ 
tilled, therefore, and sold for strengthening the wines 
of Italy and the Mediterranean islands, although we 
seldom hear of it. The man who superintended 3,000 
acres of vineyard in that part of the east for many years 
told me of every movement in the whole process, from 
the planting of the Grape to the last drop of the whiskey, 
or brandy, or whatever they may choose to call it. 
