house may be aired as usual for a vinery. I observed from the complaints made in the horticultural press in the summer of 1864, that this disease was very prevalent --just as I would have expected during so hot a summer, and with, in too many cases, defective means of ventilation.

STOCKS FOR TENDER VINES.

Those who have paid most attention to the subject have come to the conclusion that many of the highest flavoured of our grapes, which are at the same time the most delicate and difficult to grow with success on their own roots, will one day be grown with perfect ease when we have discovered the proper stocks for them, and that late-ripening varieties will be got to ripen earlier when grafted on earlier stocks. I have not myself proved the correctness of the latter, but have read of instances of it, and, reasoning from analogy, am prepared to believe it. Of the former I had a striking proof in the case of the Muscat Hamburg on the black Hamburg stock: on its own roots I have not grown it above 2 lb. weight; while on the Hamburg stocks I have had it 5 lb. weight, with larger berries and much better finished in every way than on its own roots. I have proved the black Barbarossa to be a most unsuitable stock for the Bowood Muscat -so much so, that the fruit never ripened at all on it; while by its side the Bowood Muscat ripened perfectly on its own roots. The importance of this experiment lay in the proof it gave that a late stock procrastinated the ripening of the variety grown on it; from which one is led to infer that an early stock, like Sweetwater or Chassels Musqué, would facilitate the ripening of late

sorts inarched on them. Of the excellence of the black Hamburg as a stock for such high-flavoured though delicate grapes as Muscat Hamburg, and the whole of the Frontignans, I have not the slightest doubt; and I have during last summer inarched these sorts and many others on it, and recommended others to do the same, feeling confident that success will be the result.

PACKING GRAPES.

There are many ways of packing grapes, though perhaps none of them perfectly successful in the preservation of the bloom where they have to be sent to a considerable distance by public conveyance. The method I practise myself is the following: I have light deal boxes made, capable of containing 10 lb. of grapes. The boxes have a division in their centres; they are thus in two compartments. I place a layer of fine paper-shavings in the box: I then wrap each bunch of grapes in a sheet of fine silver-paper and lay it on the shavings in the box, then a few shavings betwixt it and the next bunch, till the compartment, which holds four moderate - sized bunches, is filled, when all corners round the bunches are stuffed full of shavings, and a layer is laid on the top of all, so that when the lid is put on with screw-nails the bunches are subject to a sort of elastic pressure. This, without bruising them, keeps them from shifting about in the box. It is better to err on the side of packing them too firm than loose; for, tossed about as the boxes are in railway trucks and vans, if they are not firm they suffer very much. The division in the box takes off the weight of pressure one set of bunches would exercise on another.

E

KEEPING GRAPES AFTER THEY ARE RIPE.

This is a matter where care and attention can do much. I have kept Lady Downes seedling grapes hanging on the vine till May, in a house where we began cutting black Hamburgs in August. This house is 110 feet long, 11 feet high, and 11 feet wide, and has been referred to already as having been planted in 1858. It is a common lean-to house, built to serve the double purpose of growing figs on the back wall, a vine up each rafter and one half-way up the centre of each sash, the sashes being 5 feet wide. The ventilation is by an opening sash to the north on the top of the wall, and the front sashes open outwards in the usual way by lever and rod. The cost of this house, including boiler and two rows of 4-inch pipe along the front, was under £200; and at Christmas we had four hundred bunches of Lady Downes and West's St Peter's grapes hanging

in it.

In order that grapes may keep well, it is necessary that they should be well ripened by the end of September, and not grown in a wet border, nor should the internal atmosphere of the house be kept loaded with moisture. What is required in grapes to keep well is a firm, fleshy berry, not one full of water. The bunches should have the berries well thinned out, more so than in the case of grapes that are to be used shortly after they are ripe. Long tapering bunches keep better than broadshouldered ones, as the berries in the centre of the latter are apt to damp off and destroy the bunch before it is observed. As soon as the grapes are thoroughly ripe, the night temperature should be lowered to 50° till the leaves

fall off or ripen, when they should be removed carefully by hand from the vines. After this date the fire-heat should never exceed 45°, nor fall below 35° at night; and in damp foggy weather I keep the house carefully shut up for nights and days at a time. To give air during a damp foggy day is to fill the house with the very evil you wish to avoid damp air. The surface of the internal border is allowed to get perfectly dry and to remain so all winter, care being taken that as little sweeping or raking takes place as possible, for by this means dust is raised, which settles on the bunches. Half the roots are in the outside border, and had no covering at all.

Towards the close of February I cut about fifty bunches of the Lady Downes, detaching the branch on which the bunch grew, as when pruning the vine. I then sharpened the ends of the branches, and run some four or five of them with a bunch on each into the side of a mangold-wurzel laid on the shelf of the fruit-room, allowing the bunches to hang over the side of the shelf. In this way the grapes kept perfectly fresh till April. I left some fifteen bunches on one vine for experimenting upon, two of which are still hanging at this date, May 2. About the 15th of April the sap began to rise in the vines, and some of the berries that were a little shrivelled suddenly got plump, while others that had shown no signs of shrivelling burst their skins, and the sap of the vine that had forced itself into them began to drip from them. It was tinged with colouring matter out of the berry, and had the taste of the berry. To stop this bursting of the berries, I made an incision in the lateral on which the bunch hung, betwixt it and the parent stem of the vine, in two places, half through, at opposite sides of the lateral. This drew off the sap, and no more

berries burst. The vines have now young growths on them 9 inches long, and are appropriating all the sap, and the bleeding has ceased from the incisions. In February I had all the eyes picked out of the laterals except the one at the base of each. These are showing fruit like others that were pruned in the usual way, except the three I bled: they are much weaker than the others. From this experiment it may be reasonably inferred that it is not judicious to keep grapes hanging on the vines after the sap begins to rise. It, however, proves that it is possible to cut old grapes in May, and considering that new can be cut in January, gives an overlap of four months in the supply of grapes.

AMATEUR'S VINERY CALENDAR.

If ripe grapes are desired, say, on the 20th of July, it will be necessary to start the vines on the 1st of March, they having been pruned and dressed in the autumn, as already directed.

If the border is in a proper condition, and the vines vigorous, begin with a night temperature of 50°, and allow it to rise to 65° with sun-heat during the day. Keep the atmosphere of the house as moist as possible, and syringe the vines several times daily with tepid water. As soon as the buds burst, raise the night temperature to 55°, and let there be a corresponding rise. from sun-heat throughout their progress. When the buds are half an inch long, rub off all but the strongest one at each eye, and discontinue the syringing. As soon as the embryo fruit-buds can be seen in the points of the young shoots, raise the night temperature to 60°; and if they have the appearance of a sort of compro