and a knowledge of the size of the various sorts of grapes, as well as of given vines of the same sort.

I consider 70° of fire-heat sufficient for grapes as a night temperature, except for Muscats when in bloom. I may here remark, that in March 1867 I had a house of this vine in bloom, and during the whole month the sun was only visible for about three hours, with rain nearly every day. I kept the fire-heat 75° by night and 85° by day, and every bunch in the house set like Hamburgs. No moisture was given, while they were in bloom, in any form; the forking over of the leaves on the floor was for the time discontinued; and at that stage, if a bunch received a shake in any way, a complete cloud of pollen flew from it. This is the whole secret of setting Muscats. When they are set, however, I let them fall back to 70° at night, and give a steady but not excessive moisture to the air, letting them rise with air on to 90° during the day with sun-heat. I make it a rule, except during severe frost, to keep the back ventilators open an inch, and the front ones half an inch during the night. This gives a supply of fresh air, and keeps the foliage healthy and of good substance, and more able to resist the scorching effects of the sun when it makes its appearance. On the other hand, a thin, almost transparent foliage, grown in a close, over-moist atmosphere, though it may have expanded to a large size, gets brown and destroyed by a few days of bright sunshine in May.

With regard to watering the inside border I have as yet said nothing, and will now remark that, if the bottom drainage is good, it may get a thorough soaking of soft tepid water when the vines are started, another after the grapes are set, a third when they are taking their second swelling, and a fourth when they begin to colour;

the three latter may be liquid manure. These should be no surface waterings, but thorough drenchings; and if the season is very dry, like that of 1868, the borders inside and out should be mulched with rotten dung and receive several extra waterings; unless this is attended to, where the soil is light and gravelly, red-spider is sure to injure the vines. In no case tread on the border when it is newly watered. I ought to have remarked that the leaves placed on the floor of the vinery may be removed as soon as the grapes are set, and before the second watering. The moment the first berry in the house begins to colour, the supply of air should be more liberal both by night and day, and the moisture less, where high flavour is aimed at. When the grapes are all cut, it is too often the case that the vines no longer receive that attention which they ought till their foliage ripens and falls off in the autumn. Immediately after the grapes are cut, the vines should get a good syringing with tepid water to wash off any spider that may be on their foliage, or any dust that may have settled on it. have settled on it. The border should have water enough to keep it moist the inside border, I mean; for it rarely occurs that an outside vine-border requires water supplied artificially. In very hot summers a mulching of short dung will keep it sufficiently moist. All second growths the vines may make should be pinched off at once. If this matter is not attended to, and these after-growths are allowed to go on, the vines, instead of going to rest as they ought, will make a sort of supplementary season's growth, and will assert their right to rest at the period when they should be starting into growth. Many failures in early forcing may be traced to want of attention to this apparently trifling

cause.

PRUNING VINES.

FIG. 6.

As will be seen by a reference to fig. 6, the only bud left to produce fruit the following season is the one at the base of the lateral shoot; and I prefer a pair of pruning-scissors to a knife for the operation of pruning. Those I use have a sort of back-action, and cut as clean as a knife. My objection to the knife is that, unless it is used with care, the half-inch of wood left beyond the bud is often split by its action, and the bud suffers in consequence; but this is a matter that care can easily avoid.

When vines are vigorous they not unfrequently bleed copiously when forcing commences, though they may have been pruned months before. This is a clearlyrecognised evil, and many com

positions have been recommended for preventing bleeding. Nearly all these I have tried, but none of them answered the purpose. I have now discovered a styptic which is so perfectly successful that I can, by its use, prune a house of vines in March, dress the wounds with it, and begin forcing the next day, without the loss of a drop of sap. It is manufactured by John Young & Son, Dalkeith, and sold by all seedsmen.

Though the young wood be regularly cut back to one eye, in the course of 10 or 12 years the spurs will

become long and unsightly; and the best way to remedy this is to cut down a rod annually, beginning at one end of the house, running up a young rod in its stead till all have been renewed. By continuing this practice, the length or size of the spurs will never become an objection to the system. When vines have been trained on the old long-spur system, they can readily be converted to the one I recommend, by the same means as that for getting rid of the old spurs of the short-spur or close-cutting system; and in order that the transition should interfere as little as possible with the supply of grapes, a few young rods can be run up annually till the whole wood in the house gets renewed.

GRAFTING AND INARCHING VINES.

When it is considered desirable to increase the varieties of vines in a house, the simplest way of doing so is either to graft or inarch them. For my own part, I prefer the latter method; and by putting young wood to young wood, all that is necessary is to bring the vines to be united into a convenient position to each other, and to take a slice with a sharp knife off each, nearly half through their diameter, the wounds to be the same length; then bring their wounds together, so that at least two of their sides or lips are in close contact; then put a distinct tie above the wounds, and one below them, to enable you to undo the tie that is to hold the wounds together betwixt these two at any time, without the risk of destroying the embryo union that may be taking place; then with soft matting thoroughly and rather firmly bandage the whole length

of the wounds. The vines will swell as they grow, and this bandage will have to be slackened occasionally, when the importance of the two ties first referred to will appear. The growth of the stock on which the new vine is inarched may be stopped at three joints past its point of junction with the new one. In nine out of ten cases the union should be complete in a month, when the bandage may be taken off, but the ties above and below retained for some time afterwards. When the young vine shows by its vigorous growth that it is deriving supplies of sap from its new parent, its connection with its own roots may be half severed, and by the end of the season cut off entirely. I have inarched young wood on to old, and old wood on old, with perfect success also. I do not consider grafting so certain a plan as inarching in the manner I have described; and besides, it leads to a good deal of bleeding when the graft is put on just as the old parent vine is started into growth. This bleeding can, however, be prevented by covering the junctions of scion and stock with the styptic.

FRUITING GRAPE VINES IN POTS.

As a rule, I do not consider this a profitable way of growing grapes, as compared with permanent vines planted in borders; at the same time, there are various exceptional cases where fruit can only be had so-as, for instance, the first year a vinery is erected, if the proprietor procures not only a set of vines to plant in the borders, but another set to fruit in pots, he may in this way have a partial crop of grapes in his house the first Or when a gardener has to root out and renew

season.