October 28,1898. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
131 
SMALL BERRIED GRAPES. 
It is seldom that Grapes ripen so freely in the open- 
air in the neighbourhood of London as they have 
done this year. Those who have the means to grow 
the popular and large berried Grapes pay little 
attention to the small fruiting kinds, and in most 
cases despise them on account of their diminutive 
size, but they therefore neglect what, in the case of 
several varieties would be a very useful addition to 
the dessert. The flavour of some of them is excel¬ 
lent. Another reason that might be advanced for 
their culture is that they can be grown and ripened 
without artificial heat, in what are termed ground 
vineries for instance. Or, on the other hand, they 
might be planted and trained on a south aspect wall. 
There is a collection of small berried varieties on a 
west aspect wall in the gardens of the Royal Horti¬ 
cultural Society, and they have ripened wonderfully 
well this season; some of them even bear a heavy 
crop. 
The collection includes both European and 
American varieties. The European sorts are 
varieties of Vitis vinifera. One of the finest is 
Royal Muscadine with greenish-white or pale amber 
sub-transparent berries, with a firm, juicy and sweet 
flesh. It is an early Sweetwater Grape, and is some¬ 
times known as White Chasselas. It is one of the 
best for open-air culture. Chasselas Rose is a 
variety of the last with clear rosy-red berries having 
all the good properties of its parent. It fruits 
heavily having one to three bunches on each lateral. 
Another variety by the side of it and under the same 
name is even more heavily cropped. The berries are 
sub-transparent, but as they ripen off they acquire a 
pale reddish tint, and seem in every way inter¬ 
mediate between Royal Muscadine and Chasselas 
Rose. The berries of Miller's Burgundy are densely 
packed in the bunches and jet black, with a pro¬ 
minent bloom when well finished off. They are not 
very large, indeed that could hardly be expected, but 
they have a sweet and watery j nice. The variety 
ranks as an early sweetwater Grape. Esperian also 
fruits very heavily with one or two bunches to each 
lateral. The berries are black with a glaucous 
bloom and juicy, but not so rich in flavour as those 
already named. Ciotat is the Parsley-leaved Grape 
and is notable for the way in which the leaves are 
cut up. The fruit is transparent, sweet, fairly solid 
and agreeable. It is an early Sweetwater Grape, 
and though the bunches are small, the Vine taken 
altogether is handsome, and might be grown for 
decorative purposes in covering walls, arbours, etc. 
The American varieties have been derived from 
Vitis Labrusca and prove more suitable for the 
climate of America than the European Grapes. 
The species is indeed a native of that country. 
The wild form is grown at Chiswick by way of 
ornament on some chains near the rockery, where it 
is fruiting with tolerable freedom. But neither that 
nor the improved varieties meet with much favour 
in this country, though some of them are indeed 
pleasant eating. The berries of the wild form are 
not particularly pleasant to the taste, although were 
it growing wild in this country it would undoubtedly 
be eaten with relish by a large section of the 
community. A vast improvement upon it is the 
variety Jefferson, which has grizzly-red berries of 
relatively large size, with a moderately solid but 
melting flesh, with a sweet taste and an aroma 
reminding one of a Strawberry. It bears well, 
having one or two bunches on each lateral. 
Virginus has warm purple-red berries, with a juicy, 
sweet, and agreeable flesh, and proves acceptable to 
the palate of many, but they leave a smack in the 
mouth like the berries of a Fuchsia, which contain 
many raphides or crystals of oxalate of lime. The 
bunches of Duchess are usually long and loose, but 
this year they are comparatively small. The berries 
are also moderate in size, deep amber when fully 
matured, juicy, sweet, and agreeable. The berries 
of Brighton are deep purple-red or black when fully 
matured, moderate in size, thin skinned, with a solid 
but tender flesh of a peculiarly sweet and agreeable 
character. Moore’s Early has small bunches of 
purplish-black berries covered with a fine bloom 
of marked appearance. They are thin skinned with 
a melting flesh of a richly sweet character, and 
musky aroma, which is agreeable to some and 
probably disagreeable to others; but we fail to 
see that there is anything offensive about them. 
The talk of American Grapes being of musky 
perfume and foxy flavour has a deterrent effect 
upon many who would like to grow them; but 
several of them are very pleasant eating and 
relished by people both here and on the Continent. 
-- 
Country Gentleman's Maize. 
At the present day, when variety is so much sought 
after, it may not be out of place to mention this 
variety of Maize, which has certainly qualities of its 
own. In America the young cobs when dressed up 
in a proper manner are considered a delicacy, and 
certainly constitute a delicacy quite different from 
anything else that might be grown in the way of a 
vegetable. In this country the lack of a sufficient 
temperature that marks some of our summers is one 
drawback, for plenty of heat is necessary to bring 
the cobs to a certain degree of maturity. Early 
varieties would to a great extent decide the question 
as far as climate is concerned, for there are great 
differences in this respect, as may be seen in the 
gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society at 
Chiswick, where three varieties are grown alongside 
of each other. The Country Gentleman’s Maize is 
a dwarf and early variety, with white fruits sweet to 
the taste, and so forward is it that the leaves are 
already perfectly withered down. Of course for 
cooking purposes it should have been used some 
time ago. Alongside of it is another sort named 
South African Maize, which is 5 ft. to 6 ft. high, 
perfectly green and leafy, without any signs of 
fruiting or flowering. A third kind, with no name 
attached, is equally tall, but it has fruited well and 
the cobs are white. The spathes covering the cobs 
and the sheaths of the leaves are more or less red. 
It may be described as a second early ; the leaves are 
partly withered up. The subject named at the 
heading of this note is only about 2 ft. high, and 
therefore suitable for garden culture.— F. 
Celeniac. 
Celeriac, or the Turnip-rooted Celery, is one of 
those things generally neglected by the English 
gardener, yet highly prized by the few who grow it 
and by good cooks who are ever eager to get a sup¬ 
ply, as it makes a most agreeable change as an -ixtra 
vegetable. The seed should be sown at the same 
time as ordinary Celery, and the young plants 
be treated in the same way till planting out time, 
early in June if possible, but the earlier the better. 
Plant them out on the flat, not in trenches, 15 ins. 
apart, and in well-manured ground. They must have 
copious waterings whenever required, and a slight 
moulding up will improve the roots making them 
more tender, but it is not absolutely necessary. The 
roots are in season from September to January, and 
we have known instances where the roots of ordi¬ 
nary Celery have been cooked and served up in the 
same way, but owing to their comparative smallness 
it is at best a tiresome business for the kitchen 
folk, who infinitely prefer the larger roots of 
Celeriac. 
Spinach. 
We revert to this again, having recently come across 
a method of dealing with it which is quite new to us. 
As regards the winter crop the general plan, as is 
well known, is to sow in rows about a foot apart and 
to thin out the plants to from 6 to 9 in. in the rows. 
Under this plan fine leaves are produced which are 
gathered separately. From what we have at present 
seen the plan to which we allude, while not giving 
such large leaves certainly yields a much greater 
weight of produce from the same space of ground, 
and has an additional advantage in that the crop is 
gathered in less than a fourth of the time occupied 
in taking the leaves singly. It requires more seed 
per rod, but the additional outlay for this is amply 
repaid in the time saved and in the larger produce. 
The plan is briefly this : to sow the seed thickly in 
drills 9 in. apart, and when ready to gather begin on 
one side of the bed and cut it the same as a summer 
crop. Ours have now been gone over once and 
where first begun are quite ready again for the knife. 
Brussels Sprouts. 
Complaints are made in some quarters that these 
are not buttoning properly. Can any of your readers 
give a probable reason why this should be so. I 
believe the fault is not always with the seedsman, 
because from' the same packet of seed divided and 
grown by two individuals very opposite results have 
been achieved.— W. B. G. 
Cabbages. 
Our plantings of these made a month back are 
growing with extraordinary rapidity, so much so 
tnat we fear in the event of severe weather setting 
in they will get fearfully crippled by frost. In view 
of this contingency we are now making additional 
plantings which we hope will make a more sturdy 
growth and so be better fitted to pass through the 
winter. — W. B. G. 
-- 
dl^anings fttom f a)m:tb 
of Science. 
Cluster-cups on Paris quadrifolia.— The life 
history of a fungus named Puccinia Paridis has been 
worked out by Mr. C. B. Plowright and Mr. W. 
Thomson, as recorded in the Journal of the Linnean 
Society, vol. 30, No. 205. It has its Aecidium or 
Cluster-cup stage on Paris quadrifolia, an extremely 
interesting, but rather rare British plant, and seldom 
cultivated because its flowers are not sufficiently 
showy to attract the eye of the public generally. The 
fungus is only known to exist in small quantity near 
Carlisle, and is not likely to spread much seeing that 
the habitat of the host plant is so restricted. 
Gardeners and cultivators generally have more need 
to fear the spread of another species, namely, 
Puccinia Digraphidis, which passes one of its stages 
on Lily of the "Valley and another stage on Phalaris 
arundinacea. Now, a variegated form of the latter is 
grown in many gardens, so that it becomes possible 
for the disease to be introduced to the plantations of 
Lily of the Valley in gardens, and that would indeed 
be unfortunate. 
Abnormal Cypripedium Sedeni— The tendency 
to abnormal growth in many of the cultivated 
Orchids affords an exhaustless theme for scientists 
to unravel the mysteries of the "same, although the 
producing causes will probably always remain 
obscure like many other phenomena of nature. An 
account of an abnormal flower of Cypripedium 
Sedeni is given in the Journal of the Linnean Society, 
vol. 30. No. 205, by Miss M. F. Ewart, B. Sc. The 
ovary as well as the upper sepal was fused with the 
flower stalk. "What should have been the lip had 
grown flat in the manner of a petal while the two 
petals had developed into normally-formed lips. The 
lateral sepals had become quite separate and free. 
This is a new variation in a hybrid which is ex¬ 
tremely liable to variation. The result of hybridisa¬ 
tion is a strong factor in the production of forms that 
are abnormal and contrary to nature ; for do we not 
find amongst the popular tuberous begonias a 
greater amount of variation than amongst Orchids ? 
Yet the remarkable monstrosities in the former case 
receive less attention than in the latter. 
Fertilisation of Monarda didyma. —Oswego 
Tea, as this plant is popularly termed is an instance 
of the difficulty that many exotic subjects have in 
setting seeds when left to their own resources in this 
country. They have become adapted for fertilisation 
by certain insects or birds, and when removed from 
their native country they no longer meet with the 
necessary assistance to transfer the pollen from the 
anthers to the stigma, and are therefore unable to 
produce seed, except occasionally it may be by 
accidental means. The tube of the flower of 
Monarda didyma is long and slender with a two 
lipped, widely-gaping lamina. The flowers contain 
nectar, or honey as it is popularly, but erroneously 
called. Humble bees sometimes visit them, but are 
unable to get at the honey on account of the short¬ 
ness of their tongue. When resting on the lower lip 
the bees do not even come in contact with the 
anthers which project beyond and from beneath the 
upper lip. They cannot therefore remove the pollen, 
and the visit is productive of advantage neither 
to the bee nor plant. Kerner has suggested that the 
plant under notice may be visited by humming birds 
in its native habitats. A paper was read on the sub¬ 
ject of the fertilisation of various American plants, 
at a meeting of the Linnean Society in February 
last, by Mr. J. C. Willis, M.A., of Cambridge. He 
stated that the plants not being in their nativ'e 
habitats, he made no attempt to form lists of their 
insect visitors, but as he hoped to visit the Western 
United States he would be able to supply the defects 
in the record, which it was impossible to do in this 
country. There is still a wide field for original 
observation on the insects that fertilise a large pro¬ 
portion of the exotic plants under observation. 
