Fig. 2 will illustrate the root action of poor vines when planted erect, or without being layered. We affirm that a strong vine, with a plentiful supply of large, living roots, containing their proportion of organized matter to the top such roots have produced, thoroughly well ripened, and cut back to one eye at or previous to planting, will never grow downward if planted erect and the roots spread out in the way they are desired to grow; but they will grow through the border and out of it, (see fig. 3,)as we have previously stated, the richer the borders are, the quicker arc the roots out. We have found the roots of vines more than two hundred feet from the border in which they were planted; and such facts as these only seem to confirm the idea in the minds of many intelligent men who ought to know better, that the roots are after some wonderful and unknown elements, which their princely formed borders do not contain ! Now we have shown the reader the cause why roots are carried to the outside and into poorer soils; also, why roots are caused to grow to, and are found in, the bottom of borders.

These suggestions we offer the reader (which are, in fact, practical realities derived from many years of hard toil, mixed up with a great deal of dearly bought experience) should lead him to inquire, of what use have been all the costly materials of which a very great majority of vine borders are composed? Roots that are on the bottom of a border can only imbibe the impure leechings of an unaerated mass of constantly decomposing vegetable matter; and were it not for the system of drainage, which in many cases is a filter into which sometimes get accidentally, or otherwise, fresh air, these roots in question would die long before they commonly do. If the roots are then in the bottom of borders, or have grown through and out of them, it becomes evident that the expensive compounds of which such borders are formed is of no use to the plants, and that if vines grow and produce ordinary fruit with their roots out, and in poorer soils, it is evidence sufficient that crops of grapes can be produced from much poorer soils than many of us have anticipated. Now the apparent wrong in this stage of our culture of the vine, lies simply in the kind of roots the plant is induced to form, which are long cords possessing not much else than one gross spongiole, or mouth at its end.

We have said "induced to form," because we know by experience that from the conditions by which we have surrounded these roots, they can not possibly, or naturally, produce any other formation. The reason why vine roots are long, is because the compost contains gross feeding material in every particle the spongiole touches, or traverses through. Look for a moment, and see how we have been taught to produce this result. See how the materials recommended for use are to be thoroughly hacked and hewed, turned over and over in some great monstrous heap, lying for a year perhaps, or more, before it is considered fit for use. Listen to the directions to "thoroughly incorporate" every particle of the "great whole" like so many drugs in the prescription of some noted physician in a case of life and death! Does not this wonderful work of compounding and incorporating tend to place all and every element the root may require, directly in and surrounding every spongiole or mouth the plant may produce? and under such flourishing conditions are not the roots induced to drive furiously onward until they are brought blindly to an awful precipice, and then hurled headlong to destruction? Are we not wonderful and ingenious men to so construct borders for the deceptive allurement of the vine's roots into a land that don't "flow with milk and honey," and then stand and gaze, and wonder how they got there? Does the reader now see that we, the gardeners, possess the means at will, and are really the cause of the vine producing these long whips of roots? Yes, for we would not like to insult the intelligence of this journal so much as to think for a moment that this fact was not evident to the perception of every reader.

Now if your readers are convinced that we are the agents in producing a species of roots which have but one feeding mouth where five hundred or five thousand should be, then it will not be a very difficult matter for the reader to comprehend that we also can become the agents to compel the vine to produce short roots, with an innumerable amount of feeders to work in, and through, every particle of the soil that is placed, and prepared for them. Now if we can change the entire character of the roots from long tap-roots driving either to the bottom of the border, or, on the other hand, through and out of it, for fibrous roots, issued forth in untold numbers, feeding regularly on the compost we have made, then we shall have the satisfaction of knowing that our labor and materials are not wasted, and that we should then reasonably expect the vine, from its good feeding, to produce compensating results.

Now how are we to exchange the character of these long roots into small fibrous ones? Simply by reversing the conditions which produce the long useless ones. These conditions, of course, are the alterations of the materials of which we have been composing our borders. Some years ago, and as now, we grew a great many roses for flowering during the winter; the cuttings were struck principally in the spring, and then turned out to grow in open ground during the summer. We invariably selected the richest ground we could get in order to get strong plants for potting by the fall. These roses, however, always made strong roots and went directly downwards, so that often there was much trouble in taking them up without cutting half their long tap-roots off, and this we did not care to do for obvious reasons. Further, it was impossible to take up any of these plants with earth on them, because, having no fibrous roots, it would all fall away in digging them up. Sometimes we wanted soil to the roots, for it enables us with some varieties to get a few roses much earlier than otherwise.

One season we had more cuttings than filled our piece of deep rich ground, and, consequently, had to take apiece that we did not think much of, it being more than one-half sand, the other portion being a vegetable matter analogous to leaf-mould. Now what was our surprise in the fall of the year, when these plants came to be taken up - there was not an individual rose that had any tap-roots to them ! No, not one! We took flat-pronged forks, and lifted each rose with large balls of the earth, which covered the entire fork, and this could be carried to any reasonable distance in that way without parting with the soil, so numerous were the fibres that held it together. This was not the only marked difference; the plants had ripened their wood hard up to the very ends, and the wood of the whole which grew in this soil was much shorter jointed, and every way better adapted to the purpose they were wanted for than any we had grown previously.

Here was a lesson for us in grape growing; but as we have already over-stepped our limits, we will leave the reader to consider what this lesson was, till we shall trouble his attention again.

(To be continued).

[We hope these articles of Fox Meadow will be read attentively by that class of people who seldom or never look at things beneath the surface. A horticulturist, above all others, should go to the "root" of all matters pertaining to his profession. He may or may not arrive at conclusions precisely identical with those of his professional brethren engaged in similar investigations, but he will undoubtedly add much to his own knowledge, and lighten the way of many who are groping in the dark. Some remarks suggested by Fox Meadow's articles will come in properly hereafter. In the meantime we hope they will awaken a spirit of inquiry. - ED].