these borders I had carefully lifted and placed in pots of 2 inches greater diameter than their balls, and the inch all round filled with fibry loam; and they formed an immense mass of fine active roots all round the outsides of the balls in the pots, and the canes were of fine strength, and thoroughly hard and well ripened. When vines prepared as described come to be planted, there is no occasion to shake out the ball, for there are no coiled roots; all they require is that the roots round the sides of the balls should be disengaged a little with a pointed stick, and the soil of the border filled in around them, and I guarantee the result will be most satisfactory, all other necessary attention being supplied. I readily admit that to train young vines in the way I have attempted to describe is much more expensive than the usual method, but I am certain the expenditure will give an ample return for many years.

The system of growing young vines either for fruiting or planting in very rich soil with bottom-heat, and as close together as beans in a field, cannot be too severely condemned; soft pithy wood and bad constitutions are the certain results. Nurserymen, however, should not be blamed for this while purchasers rush to where the price is the lowest, altogether irrespective of any such considerations as those I have called attention to. If the cane is a good size they are satisfied.

It is a great mistake to suppose, as some appear to do at the present day, that young vines that are grown "without the aid of artificial heat" are any better than those that have had such aid: the very reverse is the case. Nothing will compensate for the absence of thoroughly-ripened wood, and in Britain this can rarely be attained from eyes the first year without the assist

ance of fire-heat; and no vine is fit for planting that has been two years in a pot, when compared with one that has been well managed one year. While I give this method of preparing vines for planting, I think it right to retain what I have written on the subject in former editions, as many may not have the means of growing them as here described. At the same time, I am sure the system will commend itself to the ordinary commonsense of readers.

my

YOUNG VINES FOR PLANTING.

There are various opinions as to the best way of preparing young vines for planting. I have used plants from layers; from eyes, two, three, and even four years old; from eyes one year old; and from eyes struck the year they were planted, and have found them all succeed; but I would give a decided preference to the two latter, and especially to good, sound, well-ripened vines one year old, from eyes either home-grown or procured from some respectable nurseryman, who is careful about their names being correct-who does not grow them in bottom-heat, and as thick as they can stand, in dark houses, which is sometimes done. They may be struck in bottom-heat; but after they are shifted into the pot in which they are to be sold, they should have no bottomheat exceeding the atmospheric temperature of the house they are grown in; for I have invariably observed that the soft forced roots vines make in bottom-heat, such as they receive when plunged in hot tan, die off during the winter, and are of no service to the plants when planted the following spring; and though the canes, in consequence of being forced on in this way, may look better

than those grown without bottom-heat, they are not so in reality. Far better have a well-ripened though smaller cane, with a pot full of hard, fibry, active roots, that will survive the winter, and come early into action in the spring. My objection to the plants being crowded in dark houses, as they are often to be seen, is, that many of them get no direct light from the sun on their foliage; and, though they may make good-sized canes, cannot be properly ripened, and become fit foundations for healthy fruitful vines. When vines are thus crowded during their season of growth, and are set outdoors, perhaps against a wall or hedge, to stand till sold, they are sure to receive permanent injury from even a moderate degree of frost, such as would not injure well-ripened canes. As a rule, it is injudicious to expose young or old vines, ripened in this country, to more than 10° of frost at any time.

When the vines are to be struck from eyes, I have found it best to select the eyes from well-ripened wood, from a house where the grapes have been cut in June or July. I cut the wood right across, about half an inch on each side of the eye, and then take a small slice off the side of it, longitudinally, opposite the eye, making the cuts as clean as possible. I then have 4-inch pots filled with light turfy loam, and a small portion of thoroughlydecayed leaf-mould. When the pot is filled with this soil, I make a hole that would contain a walnut in the centre of it, which I fill up with fine white sand, and in the centre of the sand the eye is deposited, when a little of the compost is placed over it, and the whole receives a watering. I have found that cuttings form callus sooner in sand than in loam, and throw out more roots also.

When thus potted in January, they may for a

time stand in any convenient corner of a peach-house or vinery just started. By the 1st of February they should be plunged in tan, or some other medium affording a bottom-heat of 90°, and placed as near the glass as possible. With an atmospheric temperature of 55° at night, rising to 70° by day, the buds will soon appear above the soil. Contemporaneously with the development of leaves, roots will be emitted all round the calloused edges of the bud into the soil. At this stage see that they have what water they require to keep the soil moderately moist; and to guard against the formation of what I will term strong bottom-heat roots, give the pots a shake with the hand, so as to leave a cavity all round them, from which any excess of heat may escape. When the plants have four leaves developed, raise them out of the plunging material they are in; and though they will not make such a rapid growth as if left in the bottom-heat, they will make a much safer one. The pots by this time will be getting pretty full of roots; but on no account shift the plants into larger pots till they have begun to grow afresh after the stand they make, when the available nutriment in the bud is exhausted, and before the young roots and newly-developed leaves have begun to supply If shifted before this second growth begins, they frequently stand still for a month, and often end in premature ripening at the neck, and refusing to start into a healthy second growth at all.

more.

The size of pot they should be shifted into depends on what they are intended for. If for planting out, an 8-inch pot is sufficient; if for fruiting in pots the following season, the size should not be less than 8 inches or more than 14 inches. I have found a compost the same as that recommended for the borders answer ad

mirably for vines in pots. When potted, they should for a few days be shaded, as the roots must suffer more or less in the process, and are not prepared to supply the foliage with the needful sap to resist the demands made upon it by a powerful sun. In March or April the temperature and general treatment as to airing should be the same as what will be recommended for the first year they are planted out in the border. They must never be allowed to flag for want of water; give liquid manure once a-week. Whether vines are intended for fruiting in pots, or for planting out the following season, the laterals, as they appear, should be stopped at one joint. These laterals will break again, and should be pinched, so as to leave another joint. The best position for such vines to grow in is in the full blaze of the sun. I have grown them trained up under the rafters of a pine-pit, and found them prove very fruitful, and also against the back wall of a pine-stove; but they will do well in any situation where they can have vinery or pine-stove heat, be regularly watered, have the full influence of the sun, and be kept free from red-spider. When the canes become brown, and all the symptoms of ripening show themselves, the whole of the lateral branches may be cut off, care being taken not to injure the leaves that spring from the main stem, as their office is to fill out the buds that are to show the young bunches of fruit next season. When fairly ripened-say in Septemberand the leaves are getting an autumn tint, they may be removed and nailed up against a wall, provision being made that they do not suffer from want of water. From this position they should, on the approach of frost, be removed to an airy shed, peach-house at rest, or some other shelter, where they can be kept cool, and at the