53 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND CO 
THE BARBAROSSA GRAPE. 
This long-keeping variety of the Vine is, as is well known, a 
very rampant grower; and in too many places it lias proved a 
shy bearer. I saw a method of cultivating it practised by Mr. 
Mitchell, gardener to Lord Wonloek, at Esctiek Park, near 
1 ork, by which thin shyness, of producing fruit Was entirely 
overcome, lie first grew the Vines in large pots till they were 
so strong as to warrant an expectation that they would bear 
some hunches of fruit. They were then pruned hack to six or 
seven feet long, and placed upon a border of rich earth inside 
the house. The roots found their way through the holes at the 
bottom of the pots, and swelled oil'several bunches of flue fruit. 
There they were allowed to remain, and had the proper treat¬ 
ment of heat, rest, and pruning, and never failed to produce 
plenty of fruit. I saw them last month, and a finer crop 1 never 
saw oil any sort of Vine. They had been so placed four years. 
The bunches were large, the berries well swelled, and as 
black as jet. Now, the rationale of this practice seems to 
me to he confining the roots, and thereby inducing a more 
moderate growth. The house was principally filled with this 
variety, ami, 1 understood, was kept a lew degrees higher in 
temperature than would suit the Blade Hamburgh. In fact, 
such as is necessary in order to bring to perfection the Muscat 
of Alexandria Grape. At the same place, I saw a good crop of 
a Black Grape,known by the. name of Lady Downe’s. Like the 
Barbarossa , it is a long-keeping (drape, hut the bunches are 
not large. That objection, however, is obviated by its exceed¬ 
ingly free-bearing quality, f have seen it in other places equally 
productive. The flavour is peculiar, hut pleasant: 1 consider it 
much superior to the West's St. Peter's, as a late Grape, and very 
suitable for a small garden. At Escrick, also, there are some 
rafters covered with Pope’s Hamburgh Grape, a sort little known, 
but well worthy of a more extended cultivation. The berries 
are more oval-shaped than the. common Hamburgh, the bunches 
larger, the skin as delicate, and the berries are more juicy and 
of a better flavour.—T. Aupleby. 
THE SCIENCE OE GARDENING. 
{Continued from page 21.) 
It is by r hair-like perforated suckers near their extremities, as 
we have stated, that roots imbibe food ; but the orifices of these 
suckers are so minute, that they can only admit food in a state 
of solution. Carbon, reduced to an impalpable powder, being 
insoluble in water, though offered to the roots of several plants, 
mingled with that fluid, has never been observed to be absorbed 
by them ; yet it is one of their chief constituents, and is readily 
absorbed in any combination which renders it fluid. 
Roots then must obtain from a soil nourishment to plants in a 
gaseous or liquid state : we shall have, therefore, to consider what 
constituents of soil are capable of being presented in such forms. 
Water can be the only solvent employed ; indeed, so essential is 
this liquid itself, that no plant can exist where it is entirely absent; 
and, on the other hand, many will exist with their roots in vessels 
containing nothing hut distilled water. Plants with a broad sur¬ 
face of leaves—as Mint, Beans, &e., we have always found' in¬ 
crease in carbonaceous matter whilst thus vegetating; but 
Onions, Hyacinths, Ac., with small surfaces of foliage, we, as 
invariably, have found to decrease in solid mailers. The first, 
at all times, obtain nourishment by decomposing the. carbonic 
acid gas of the atmosphere. The latter do so in a much smaller 
proportion: hence the reason why the latter are so much more 
impoverishing crops than the former, inasmuch as that they 
acquire nearly all their solid matter by means of their roots. 
These observations explain the conflicting statements of Sauseurc 
and Hassenfratz on this point: the former experimented with 
broad-leaved plants; the latter on such as have small foliage. 
The iirst maintained that plants increase in solid content when 
their roots arc supplied with water only; the latter denied the 
fact. 
It has been advanced, that water is the sole food of plants; 
but all experiments arc inconclusive which are presented as sup- 
porting the theory. 
In the first place, all waters contain earthy, saline, and organic 
matters. Even distilled water is not pure, as Sir H. Davy has 
proved ; and rain water has been demonstrated to he much less 
so. No plants, growing in water only, will ever perfect seed; 
and the facts, that different plants affect different soils, and that 
NTRY GENTLEM AN, Amur 2d, 135a. 
a soil will not bear through a series of years the same crop, 
whereas it will bear a rotation of different crops, demonstrate that 
they each take somewhat varying kinds of food from the earth, 
and not that universal one—water, which is ever present and 
renewed. 
So far, indeed, from water being the sole food of plants, tlicy 
are injured and destroyed by its superabundance in the soils 
sustaining them. Such soils are always colder tlian well-drained 
soils, inasmuch as that the same quantity of caloric (heat) which 
will warm the earth 4°, will only warm water 1°—or, to use the 
language of the chemist, the capacity for heat of water is four 
t imes greater than that of the earths. 
The effect of drainage upon the temperature of the soil has 
been well shown by the observations recorded in Mr. H. Stephens’ 
work on the Ycster dccp-lalid culture. Six thermometers were 
placed in the soil, at a depth of eighteen inches. This distance 
from the surface was chosen, since at that depth they were found 
not to be sensibly affected by the changes of the temperature of 
the atmosphere. Observations were made to ascertain the tem¬ 
perature of the ground before and after it was thoroughly drained 
and subsoil-ploughed. In the following (able, column I. gives 
the month; II., the mean temperature in 1849 of the soil of a 
field at Yester Mains in its undrained 'State; 111., that of another 
field in the same year after being thorough-drained; IV., that of 
No. 11. in 1850, after thorough draining; 
the south border of a garden at Yester, in 
V., that of the 
1849 
soil 
Vegetating 
Season. II. 
lit 
XV. 
V. 
March 
. 36 
37 
37 
42 
April 
. . 40 
38 
39 
43 
May . . 
. 48 
47 
42 
51 
June 
. . 54 
53 
54 
58 
July . 
. 55 
54 
59 
62 
August 
. . 56 
46 
54 
62 
September . 
. 50 
54 
55 
59 
October 
. . . 35 
37 
50 
50 
Mean of vegetating season 4G.75 45.75 48.75 53.37 
Noa-vao ktatiku Season. 
November . 
. 34 
37 
44 
46 
December 
. 34 
36 
39 
41 
January 
. 32 
32 
32 
43 
February 
. 34 
38 
36 
53 
Mean of non-veg. season 
. 33.05 
'35.75 
37.75 
45.75 
Mean of both seasons. 
42.33 
42.42 
45.08 
50.83 
The celerity with which (borough draining may affect the tem¬ 
perature of (ho surface soil, was observed, in one instance, at 
Brondwoodside. A thermometer placed one foot under the sur¬ 
face, on the crown of an eighteen-teet ridge, before a drain was 
cut, indicated a temperature of 48°; after a drain had been cut 
to the ordinary depth on each side, in Lie open furrow of the 
ridge, (he temperature rose to 49.5°, that is 1£° in six hours.— 
(Agricultural Gazelle, 1855, p. (551). 
The water removed from cultivated soils by the land-drains lias 
been examined by Professor Way ( Journal Royal Agricultural 
Society , vol. xvii., p. 123), and as the substances found in such 
waters pretty well correspond with those contained in the mois- 
(ure of the soils through which they percolate, and from which 
moisture-the growing plant obtains at least all its mineral in - 
gradients, it may be useful, as in the following table, to give, 1., the 
substances found in 100 parts of the seed of the Iloptoun Wheat; 
II., in its si raw and chaff (Ibid, vol. vii., p. 631) ; 111. and IV., 
the matters (given in grains) contained in an imperial gallon ot 
farm of Air. i’aine, at 
Farnliam, in 
Surrey 
(Ibid, 
vol. xvii. 
p. 133) : — 
I. 
II. 
III. 
IV. 
Silica . 
. 5.63 
69.36 
0.95 
0.45 
Phosphoric acid 
. . 43.98 
5.24 
trace. 
0.12 
Sulphuric acid 
. 0.21 
4.45 
1.65 
5.15 
Chlorine 
. . — 
— 
0.70 
1.10 
Lime . 
. 1.80 
6.96 
4.85 
7.19 
Magnesia 
. . 11.69 
1.45 
0.68 
2.82 
Peroxide of iron . 
0.29 
0.73 
— 
— 
Ditto and alumina 
. . — 
— 
0.40 
0.05 
Potash 
. 34.51 
11.79 
trace. 
t race. 
Soda 
. . 187 
— 
1.0 
2.17 
Then as to the soluble organic matter, ammonia, and nitric acid, 
found in land-drainage waters, in seven different specimens, from 
