the loam I have described as most suitable for vines, I will here indicate a compost that will grow excellent grapes, and that is at the same time within the reach of all who possess a garden. Take of the ordinary gardensoil one-half the quantity required to make up the border; lay it in sharp ridges to get a winter's frost. Then procure one-fourth the quantity required of the parings of turfedgings and the scourings of ditches, with the addition of a few barrow-loads of clay; then get together all the clippings of hedges, the prunings of fruit-trees, with any other refuse of a kindred nature; build all into a heap and set fire to it, piling it round with the turf-parings and clay already referred to, till the whole forms a cone, with a fire in its centre. After it has burned for some days, and the whole has got thoroughly hot through, and the wood all charred, extinguish it by pouring on the hot mass the drainage of cow-byres, pigsties, or any similar liquid; and while still in a hot state, mix it with the common garden-soil that has been for some time in ridges. To every ten loads of this compost add one of old lime-rubbish, one of farmyard manure, 4 cwt. of bones about an inch square, 2 cwt. horn-shavings, when they can be procured, and if they cannot, let superphosphate of lime take their place. Let the whole be turned over more than once, but always in dry weather, and it will form an excellent compost for vines.

For reasons that all gardeners understand, I would not make the whole width of the border at the time the vines are planted, but would make up, say, 6 feet inside the house, and the same width outside. This will be found ample for the roots of the vines to run in for the first year. The second year I would add 3 feet inside and 3 out, and at this rate annually till the allotted

width is made up, going back to the points of the roots at every such addition, and raising them carefully into the newly-added soil. In this way the compost, instead of becoming sour from being trod upon, and watered while as yet no roots are in it, will be added just as the roots are ready for it; and every gardener knows with what gusto vine-roots rush into fresh turfy loam as compared with that which is sodden and livery; and it is well known, also, that soil gets more readily into this state when it is much in excess of the requirements of the plants that grow in it; and it is frequently more convenient, where soil and labour are scarce, to make the borders in this way, than to have so much to do at

once.

NEW METHOD OF PREPARING YOUNG VINES

FOR PLANTING.

The admitted fact that many vines, after having attained to full fruitfulness, rapidly culminate and decline, has occupied my thoughts a good deal, with a view to the discovery of the cause, and a remedy for it, ever since the sixth edition of this work passed through my hands; and I have come to the conclusion that the cause must be sought, more in the defective preparation of the young vine before it is planted, than anywhere else. I know there are those who blame what is called the restrictive system of cultivation for this admitted evil. I differ with them, and will proceed to describe what the ordinary treatment of a young vine is, up to the day it is planted in the border, and what is likely to be its progress for some time afterwards.

To begin at the beginning-a vine-eye is placed in,

say, good rich soil, in a small pot, and the pot is plunged in smart bottom-heat in January. In that position it soon starts a bud upwards, and five or six fine strong roots downwards into the rich soil. These soon reach the sides

round it in a coil. Rapid

of the pot, and begin to run progress is made by both root and branch, and when the vine is, say, 12 inches in height, it is shifted into perhaps a 10-inch pot, the soil being rich, that the canes may be strong. In this rich soil, especially with bottomheat, the roots, though few in number, soon find the sides of the larger pot, and begin to coil round it again.

I am only dealing with the root preparation, and say nothing of the evils resulting to the vine from overcrowding, and the absence of plenty of light and air on the foliage.

The cane becomes ripe, and the vine is supposed to be ready for planting the following spring. The border being ready, made up of good rich loam, with the usual admixtures, the vine is turned out of the pot, and then comes the difficult task of disentangling the roots, and spreading them out in the border. By the time this is properly done, there are left but some five or six long roots that reach half-way across the border in all the directions they are laid. The task of disentangling has been so difficult that all the young fibry roots, if there were any, have been torn and destroyed. The vine thus planted makes progress while the stored-up sap in the stem and few roots that survive lasts, when a halt is called till roots are formed to supply more. This generally takes place from the points of the extended, roots, and as a rule they go straight in the direction in which the old roots are laid, for the most part outwards in an opposite direction from the top of the vine. In

three years, if the border is all made up in that time, they have got to the extremity of the prepared soil, and enter something of a very different character generally. Sometimes there is an exception to this, and all goes. well; but it is wrong to presume on such a contingency. From all who may say that my description of what takes place in the circumstances described is not correct, I appeal to whoever may have removed the soil from the roots of old vines, and especially if the borders have been originally made of rich compost. They have found in the original border a few great, long, bare roots, that had rushed rapidly in early life through the prepared soil, into that which is not at all congenial to their health. Consequently, in some six or seven years, vines of great promise become suddenly subject to shanking, and get weaker and weaker, till they are voted a failure.

I will now describe the method I adopted in the spring of 1870 to obviate the evils I have pointed out,-and seeing that to myself it involved a large commercial interest, I only adopted it after clear conviction that the usual system was wrong; and I am happy to say that, others being the judges, nothing could be more successful as far as it has gone. I had vineries to plant requiring about 700 vines, of various sorts, and I prepared them as I will now attempt to describe. Over the pavement of the pit of a pine-stove, under which were hot-water pipes, just sufficient to give a bottom-heat of 70°, I laid a course of thin fibry turf; on this turf some four inches of fine turfy loam, but no dung of any sort. In this soil, about 6 inches apart each way, I placed the vine-eyes in February. They started, and made progress in the usual way, sending out a few fine large fleshy roots. When the plants were 6 inches high, I had them all cut

round, so as to isolate the piece of turf on which each vine sat. By this process all the points of their strong tap-roots were cut, and during sunshine they flagged for a day or two. In the week each plant was lifted by having a flat trowel shoved under it, when it was seen that every root so cut had emitted more than a score of small fibry rootlets. They were then placed on a similar bed of turf, and soil placed round them, but this time 9 inches apart each way. They suffered no check, but grew rapidly. When 3 feet high, they were cut round again, as in the first instance, and allowed to stand a week, when they were raised on a spade, and planted in the borders where they are to fruit. This time all the edges of the cube of fibry soil they were growing in were one mass of small roots, more like the roots of a privethedge than a vine. On the 29th of May a span-roofed house of Lady Downes, 200 feet long, was planted with vines prepared as I have described; on the 20th of June, a Muscat-house of same size; on July 5th, a third house, of same size;—and I am unable to say that I ever saw vines do as well before; while an examination of the border they are growing in shows that their roots retain the character thus forced upon them, and by only adding about 3 feet of border inside and the same outside to each side of the house annually, they have been compelled to retain their multitudinous character; the result being that, at the end of the first season, there was scarcely a vine in a hundred that differed in strength from its fellow, and all from 3 inches to 3 inches in circumference, and as ripe and hard to the apex of the houses, 20 feet from the ground, as if they had been there for years.

Such of the vines as I did not require for planting