230 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 19, 1859. 
shortening in and removing the laterals entirely, but by degrees, 
as the wood begins to harden. Eor want of attention to these 
simple principles we have Been Vines in pots, intended to be cut 
back in winter to six feet, or even shorter, allowed to ramble as 
they pleased—the lower part of the stem without a lateral, and 
weak and puny; the upper part green and luxuriant, and of 
double the thickness, with laterals flaunting at will : and surprise 
was expressed that the Vines did so little good, when all the 
strongest and best wood, if it had been well hardened, was taken 
away with the pruning-knife. Common sense, under such cir¬ 
cumstances, would say, “ Concentrate your strength near home 
at the pot end of the Vine shoot.” 
The second inquiry, as to time of potting, we answer by saying, 
repot directly if you mean to do it at all. For Vines to be started 
at all early,—the middle and end of July are rather late for re¬ 
potting,— we should have preferred the beginning of June. The 
chief things to bo thought of in the autumn months are, con¬ 
centrating vigour and ripening the wood, so as to have buds 
plump and hard. The late potting will encourage fresh growth 
at the very time you wish to arrest it. Besides, a No. 4-pot is 
large enough for pot Vines under ordinary circumstances. Were 
the Vines ours, and the middle of July passed, we would be more 
inclined to give surface dressings and manure waterings than more 
pot room. We should hesitate to repot now ; there would be no 
hesitation at all about the matter in the spring of the year. Such 
an operation we should thoroughly avoid then. Of course, we are 
presuming that the Vines, when last shifted, were properly drained 
and placed in a suitable, rough, open, rich compost. The richness 
is ot less moment, as that can be supplied at any time by watering 
and top dressing. When plants are in exhausted stufl', and 
the drainage imperfect, there can be no question as to repotting 
at any time, even on the principle of securing health. For all 
plants intended to fruit in pots, the more thoroughly the pots 
are filled with roots, before fresh growth is excited, the more 
likely will be the success. This rule holds true, especially in all 
early forcing. When plants are allowed to start almost naturally, 
the late repotting is less injurious—in fact, many things hardly feel 
it. We have taken four Vines, as equal as possible in No. 12-pots, 
and started them in the beginning of February under the same con¬ 
ditions. Two pots had the surface soil removed without injuring 
the roots, and fresh rich compost added; the other two had a 
little of the old soil also removed, and were transferred, one to an 
eight, and one to a four-inch pot; and though the latter produced 
during the season finer foliage, they neither showed, set, nor per¬ 
fected their fruit, equal to those in the No. 12-pots. Of course, 
the latter required more supervision in watering. If our cor¬ 
respondent would select six 32-pots of Keens' Seedling Straw¬ 
berry, as near as possible in growth and ripeness, and all having 
their pots well filled with roots in October, and place three of 
these as they are with a fresh top dressing in his forcing house, 
in January, and place the other three in the same place and cir¬ 
cumstances, only after having transferred them into a 24-pot, or 
a small 16-pot, and into suitable compost; and then, if after 
giving them respectively all necessary attention, he find that the 
shifted plants yield the best return, then his experience will have 
been so different from our own, that we should gladly forfeit this 
good steel pen, and consider he was perfectly justified in opposi¬ 
tion to our advice, in repotting his fruiting-Vines in the spring.] 
CULTURE OF LAPAGERIA ROSEA—LILIES AND 
YELLOW ROSES. 
“At page 227 of Vol. XVI. of The Cottage Gahdenek I 
referred to a small Lapageria rosea , and said that in the following 
autumn I would state how I proceeded with it; but I desisted, 
because it did not move, became of a dull green colour, and by 
the following midsummer it was dead. In the same autumn 
(1857) I procured another plant which had started about six 
inches, and put it in the same pan as the other, and placed it in 
a cold pit; but I found that some insect had eaten it off within 
two inches of the collar. In the spring of 1858 it made two or 
three leaves close to the collar ; and in May I placed it in the 
open air, and tw’O shoots started, and made about eighteen inches, 
and twined round two rods. As I found they would twine, I 
put some finely perforated zinc about two feet deep round the 
inside of the edge of the pan, and covered it with lace, and thus 
protected it from insects, &c. In October I placed it in the pit 
again with other plants, and took it out soon after the late frost. 
In February, and several times afterwards, I gave it some water. 
It began to grow early in tho spring, and it has grown twelve 
inches this year ; so that it is now two feet and a half high. 
“ My scheme for growing the Lapageria was this :—I could not 
obtain a pan exactly what I wanted ; but I procured one five inches 
deep, twenty inches diameter at top, and fourteen at bottom, 
with a hole two inches diameter. Some bits of slate are laid on 
the bottom, and covered with a piece of zinc hill of quarter-inch 
holes; then a peaty turf, the grass side upwards, and filled up 
with a compost of peat, loam, sand, and small gravel. In this 
the plant is growing, and is supplied with water thus:—The pan 
fits just within the top of a lower one, into which the water is 
poured. A bit of wood, the size of a pencil, is forced through a 
small bit of sponge three inches long, and enters the turf which 
the sponge touches and supplies with the water below. It will 
take up gallons in the year, and in this way moisture is given 
, [by “ filtration.”] Last month I took the compost out of the 
pan.to see if any worms were in ; and found that the root of the 
plant had not extended laterally, but had gone directly dow nwards 
and forced its way through the solid turf (one inch and a half 
thick) near the point it is supplied with water. Will this state¬ 
ment afford any flint to Mr. Beaton ? and will he be good enough 
to give me any in regard to the management of the plant, and tho 
height it is likely to attain, and when flower? 
“ In the autumn of 1857 I had a Lilium giganteum, which was 
planted out in the spring of 1858. It threw up two leaves four 
or five inches, and when the warm weuther came in June it 
stopped growing. In the autumn I put it in a cold pit, and 
planted it out this spring. It has made two leaves about as 
large as before, but stronger, and now seems stationary. Can I 
help it on ? I suppose I ought to be content. 
“ At the same time I had a Lilium Walliehii. It has only 
grown a few inches each season, but has made several offsets. 
The Lilies have been treated as directed at page 227 above 
referred to. 
“ I have had a llosa Fortuniana three years. It was planted 
two years since against the front of my house ; the aspect north 
east, nearly east. So far as there is any peculiarity in the situation, 
it is rather dry'; but the plant is about twelve feet high, and 
looks healthy. Last year it had two or three flowers on, but this 
year not a bud. It has been pruned somewhat in the way of a 
Banlcsia , but not strictly so.”—J. G. 
[ Fortune's Yellow Bose, and all the shy-blooming Roses, as 
Cloth of Gold and Isabella Grey, ought to be treated exactly as 
they used to be two hundred years back—no pruning, or pinch¬ 
ing, or touching with a knife, if it were for ten years, till they 
come to a flowering age. Then, and not till then, clean right out 
of them all the very small wood, and every inch of the very strong 
shoots made the summer before. (See page 223.) Here is the 
first instance in our pages of watering by “ filtration,” and 
another fact in corroboration of the thirsty nature of Lapageria 
•rosea. The roots struck downwards after the filtration, contrary 
to their nature. The pans ought to have been reversed—the one 
holding the water to stand by tho side of the plant-pan, and a 
little higher, so that all the w ater could be drawn off by capillary 
attraction, or, by a much belter name, by “filtration,” as it used 
to be in the olden time. A good, healthy, vigorous Lapageria 
would manage very well to have the largest-sized garden water- 
pot full of water by the side of it from May to September, and a 
constant “ filtration ” going on all the time, night and day, as 
Gilbert said. A gallon of- water every five or six hours during 
that period would not be too much for such a plant; but one 
gallon a-day would be quite enough for a young plant such as 
that above. A strong plant of Lapageria, in a free, rich, and very 
damp border, will grow ten or twelve feet at one start, and bloom 
at the end of the autumn.] 
NIGHTINGALES IN CAGES. 
“ I have this Bpring reared by hand a nest of nightingales— 
splendid fellows, warbling, when covered up for the night, already. 
1 wish to learn what are the points of size or feather which arc 
peculiar to the male bird; or is the song common to the male 
and female? Mine are very much alike in all respects; but as 
they sing in their little way, when covered for the night, I am 
unable to judge ; as, if I were to uncover them, the disturbance 
would check their warbling, which is really not to be despised in 
creatures so young.” —Philomel. 
[I know of no peculiar characteristic by which you can dis¬ 
tinguish the male from the female in the nightingale, except by 
