In using pots on the tank, much will depend on the plan adopted. Suppose it is desired to start, as should be done, the propagation February first, and bring the buds on to the best extent, and about the first of June, or as soon as the earth is in a warm growing state for the young vines, to put them out in a vineyard, where they are permanently to stand, and be fruited; then an excellent way is to put but one bud in each pot and plunge them over the table thus, (see fig. 28), (a) using a two inch pot, that is two inches at the top, and about three inches deep, set as close as can be in the plunging material. By this plan they can be started the first of February, and in six or eight weeks be repotted to a pot four inches wide at the top and about five inches deep, and removed to the hardening table, and June first or-on the coming of fine growing weather, be put out in the vineyard, and make well established vines by fall; and covering them slightly with earth, they will winter without danger, and the next season make a fine growth, and be established as vines better than in any other way. When repotting, the earth, of course must not be shaken off the roots.

If the propagating house is small for the number of plants to be raised, the same sized pots are used, and they are plunged in the same manner over the table; but three buds are used to a pot, and one bud at each interval between the pots thus (see fig. 28, b). And when removed to the hardening table they can be "shook out," or have the earth shaken off of the roots, and be repotted, one vine in a pot, with but small loss, as also the buds outside of the pots taken up and potted, and by June 1st to 18th be ready for the vineyard; for the young vine bears with great impunity these changes, as is the proven experience of every operator. Or if designed for the nursery, they had better be left with the two inch ball of earth unbroken, and the three young vines in it, and be repotted in four, and afterwards six inch pots, and then be put in the nursery and grown there, three vines at one place, until transplanted to the vineyard. By this means they will grow faster than if "shook out." Or they can be retained all winter in the pots, without injury, if not frozen. Frost is always an injury to vines of every kind in pots, and is one reason why so many cannot force them to fruit in pots. To keep the vines in pots from frost, there is no better plan than to dig a hole in the garden, and pile or stack them in it, and cover them with earth, in the same manner as a potato pile or heap out of doors. Cellars and green houses, and other similar places, are apt to fill the pots and cover the vine roots with white mold, and it takes a long time for the young vines to recover from the mold. For this, or other reasons, cellars, and such places, are the last ones to put vine pots into for the winter.

But if in a given space of hot water tank the largest number of plants or vines be an object, then pots are not recommended, but wooden boxes are the best. Wooden boxes, two feet square, have four square feet of surface, and are convenient sizes and shape. They should be three inches deep. When used they are plunged side by side in the equalizing material (see fig. 26), taking care that, as with pots, so with them, the spaces between them be filled. As to the buds in the boxes, a good rule is to put one to every square inch; but if there is, from the intractable wildness of

the vine, or any other cause, a difficulty in the propagation of the kind, the buds may be set in rows one inch apart, and half an inch apart in the rows. The former mode will give (576) five hundred and seventy-six buds to a box, and the latter (1152) eleven hundred and fifty-two in a box; and crowded as this may seem, we have often seen the box a beautiful mass of finely rooted plants in the fall. If not immediately to be put into a vineyard, they can be kept in the boxes until fall, either on the hardening table, or by putting the boxes in beds of rich earth about the middle of June, or the first of July, in which case set the boxes eighteen inches apart from each other, in order that the vines may ramble over the spaces between the boxes, and sink them in the soil as deep as the top of the boxes. When thus bedded, there being a large number of holes in the bottom of the boxes, the vines grow well, but the boxes rot very fast. Here they can remain all winter, covered by a little earth, or taken up, shook out of the boxes, and trenched, for use in the vineyard the next spring.

But when it is desirable to use them the same season, we have known them started February first, and shaken out of the boxes June fifteenth to twenty-fifth, and immediately put out in the vineyard, and there make a fair growth the same year; and this with but little loss. When thus shaken out, unless well watered, and covered from the sun, and nursed, it takes four to six weeks to recover from the shock, and recommence growing. The use of manure water is to be commended for all young vines just as they put forth new leaves, after being planted in the vineyard, and this repeated at intervals of three or four weeks during the growing season. The manure water should not be manure ley to scorch with excessive richness, but kindly diluted to the tenderness of the plant roots.

But if boxes are used for the whole season, deeper ones had better be made and longer ones. Boxes then may be made as long as the tank is wide, and two feet wide, and six inches deep. It will also be found a gain to fill these larger boxes, three inches deep with fresh horse manure, well trampled down in the bottom of the box, and three inches of the good soil in which the buds are placed, on the top of the manure. The manure will give a heat to a slight degree, and ammonia enough for a slight stimulus; and in the latter months of the season the roots of the vines will mass themselves in the rotted manure. In this case less plunging material should be under the boxes.

There are plans of using malt-tile-a brick about eighteen inches square, full of square cavities, and holes in the bottom of them just fitted for drainage, for starting the buds-and some other articles. But all the principles are the same as in the pots and boxes above named.

SETTING THE BUDS.

There being, in my opinion, only these ways of applying the earth for the growth of the buds, the next question is how to set them. Buds are set according to the ideas of various operators. One way is to cut the eye or bad out, with but a very little wood, thus (see fig. 29); where (a) is the bud, (b) the leaf mark, and (c) the small portion of wood left with the bud, and the line shows the depth to which it is covered with earth. This plan, according to my observation, will do very well with buds of foreign grapes,

that have long been under the knife of the propagator, but is a very poor way for native sorts. Fig. 29 (d) shows another way, that is, a bud and half of the cane left for a half inch above and below the bud. This, also, rarely succeeds with natives. And fig. 29 at (f) shows the leaf mark as a rule of setting the bud, the bud and the leaf mark being just above the surface of the ground. This is a better way than by those methods taught us for foreign buds by foreign operators; but yet is too much liable to 'damp off" at the most critical period of our native buds, namely when one or two leaves have appeared, or are about to appear, and the "callus" is forming for the roots to point. Fig. 30 shows the setting taught by my observation and experiences. The bud (a) is (see fig. 30) set three to seven-eights of an inch above the soil in the pots or boxes, and the leaf mark (b) so far up as to be dry and beyond the reach of dampness. The cutting (c) is at least three inches long, and above the bud one-half or three-fourths of an inch, the balance being below the bud. It is also a desirable method to incline the cutting as represented, to an angle of fortyfive degrees. If native buds will not succeed in this position and depth, they will not at all. If the upper end (f) is touched with paint or common varnish it will be a gain.

HOW THE BUDS GROW.

Buds germinate or grow on all propagating tables, and especially on the hot water tank, by swelling and elongating the bud, and usually the putting forth of two, and sometimes four leaves, before much else can be noticed. Thus (a) fig. 31 is the bud just put in a pot or box over the tank, and (b) the elongated bud just about to open its leaves. Sometimes it stops here, for the rooting process, if so it is an unfavorable sign, for they easily dry and rot in this state. But we would rather see them go on and expand leaves, as seen at (c), and then stop further growth of the bud-shoot, except the expansion of the leaves, until the rooting process is completeted. On (c), (see fig. 31), will be seen little roughnesses at (x x x x); these spots are the commencement of the attempt to form roots. The next step is seen at (d), where these rough spots become pointed, or, rather, somewhere on these roughnesses there appear little white elevations, pointing out, like little horus, the roughnesses in the meantime growing larger. At (a), in fig. (c), some recommend that a gash be cut with a knife, and others, that the bark be bruised a little; and, it is supposed these favor the formation of these roughnesses at this place. But it is doubtful whether they do, as the plant usually neglects this place and selects its own spot where to throw out its roots; this only can be said in favor of this plan, that when the roots appear at the gash or bruise, at this point, they are stronger than at any other place, and are so near the bud' as to be almost like a seed planted. Often there are no roughnesses at (x x x) at this stage of germination; that is, when there are two or more leaves expanded, and these leaves then become stationary; and it is for these roughnesses to appear, and, on their appearance, the whole success depends. If they come out rough promptly, the roots form, and the plant is saved; if, however, there is a delay in the formation of this roughness, the plant sickens and dies. These roughnesses are called "callus." Now all excessive growth of leaves and wood above