Now, where the natural ground that surrounds a vine border is poor, and the made border rich, the consequence is just what we have already stated, good roots are soon out of it and into the poor soils. The roots then, being in such poor conditions, together with the most miserable systems of pruning which are now being so generally advocated, viz., a system that directs you to labor with all might and main to crush and slaughter nearly every particle of new wood the vine endeavors to form, puts at once a stop to ail growth! Growth then being stopped through ignorance of the fundamental principles of growth, men fly to the borders with a host of new-fangled ideas, which are based on no better grounds than their mal-systems of pruning and training.

In our experience there are but two fundamental points necessary to be understood in the culture of the vine, and these so simple, when the attention is directed to them, that many will wonder they had not seen them before. Yet simple as this may be, there is not a single author who ever wrote on the vine that seems to have recognized the simple truths on which are based the law for the healthful continuance though unlimited time of growth and productiveness. There is no productiveness without growth; nor is there any growth in an annual repetition of a given number of leaves, and the latter is all that is accomplished by any of the present authorities on pruning.

Now, in order to make our ideas clearly understood by the reader, we must show what we mean by growth; and as the roots are the principal agents acting in the office of growth, we will begin with the root first. The root, then, being long conduits with but little more than one mouth or spongiole attached to them, become strong and powerful in highly enriched borders, and this power gained through the rich compounds of the border carries the root almost directly to the outside and into whatever soils may immediately be in connection with it. Now what we propose to do is to change the character of these roots altogether, and institute a whole mass of fibrous roots, that shall be in, and work through, every square inch of soil in time, the border may contain, whether that border be one yard wide or twenty. If we can do this, then it will be pretty evident that whatever the border is composed of, the vines must feed on it, and the materials, which may have cost little or much money, will not be very materially wasted. Now there is one great essential in vine border making, and that is, that the border be open and porous; and not so merely for one or two years, but that it ever remain so.

All horticulturists agree on this point, although the materials they compose borders of is an utter impossibility for it ever to be so, with the exception, perhaps, of the first year. Now, then, says the reader, "What do you compose borders of, to so transform the character of the vine's natural roots, and make them similar to those of a currant bush, and at the same time warrant the border to ever remain open and porous?" Stop one moment, reader, before we tell you. We want you to brace up your nerves well, and if you have any prejudices, we want you to put them in your pocket, and let reason stand alone and untrammelled till we tell you, and then we shall not fear the result of your conclusions.

In answer to the above question, we say that the materials must be diametrically opposite to every thing which makes a border rich. We have but one ob-jection to a border composed of pure sand, and that objection is this, which can be demonstrated by a practical experiment, thus: take a barrel, and fill it with sand from the side of some brook, (this being the purest,) and then take a few gallons of that black-looking manure water from the barn yard, and pour it on this sand, and you will find that this manure water will run out at the bottom, just the same color, and taste just the same, as it did before it passed through this sand. Now what inference do we derive from this 1 Why, that a border composed entirely of sand would not retain or hold long enough, the necessary elements the vine may require to produce wood and fruit. Yet, we all use sand in its pure state for rooting cuttings, and this because experience has taught us that cuttings will root quicker in it, make a larger number of roots, and of a more fibrous class, than in any other material we have yet discovered. So much, then, for sand.

We will now take another barrel of sand, and instead of it being quite pure like the first, we will mix with it two or three handfuls of charcoal dust, and then repeat the application of the manure water. Now what is the result of this? Why, it is running out at the bottom of the barrel pure water! "Colorless?" "Quite so!"

Now, then, let us see what is to be done with this border of sand to make it productive; tor, as just now stated, it is the material that will produce the must numerous class of roots, and also cause them to become fibrous, from the fact that, containing little of the food of plants, the plant is compelled to push out a numerous host of foragers to try to collect the means of its own existence. Now after we have compelled the plant to push out this host of foragers, we do not intend to be so unkind towards it as to let it die seeking the food it requires in a country that does not possess any. But with our sand experiments, we have found that the charcoal dust has been the means of retaining all the stimulating properties contained in this manure water, for nothing but the pure, white-looking water came from out the bottom of the barrel. Now what is this charcoal?

Chemists call it carbon; and its principal office in the toil is to absorb, therefore it makes this sand in question retentive of manures; and having achieved this much, it is all that is necessary to say of it now.

All the improvement, then, we wish to add to sand is, a. sufficiency of carbon to prevent such fertilizing agents as may be placed on it from passing directly through it, and out of it, before the fibrous roots we have created can absorb it into the plant's system. Any carbonaceous matter, then, placed with the sand in question will answer the same purpose as pure charcoal, but we must take care that in using this carbonaceous matter in a state of decomposition, that we do not defeat the object in view, for the object in its use in the border is merely to hold in the sand, the elements we intend to feed the vine with. Now what can we select for this purpose to be added to sand? There are several kind of materials which will answer this purpose, the common soil - leaf mould, but perhaps the best of all is muck. The latter dug from swamps in the fall of the year, and so exposed to the action of frost that it becomes thoroughly pulverized. Many persons, however, think that if muck is subjected to the action of the air even during the summer, that that is sufficient to sweeten it. Such persons are grossly deceived. It may sweeten this material, but the summer's balmy air will never disintegrate the particles.

The "Ice King" must bring his frigorific influence upon the watery particles contained in this carbonaceous matter, and buret its whole tissue asunder before it becomes fit for the use of the horticulturist When this is done, there is no better substitute for pure carbon.

Our next work is to proportion these materials, in order to make the border just such a border as shall always hold the roots of vines, and just such a border as we grow grapes in. The "Editor," however, is looking "grum" about the space we are occupying, So we take the "bint" to rum away, And live to fight another day.

[Fox Meadow becomes more and more interesting as he progresses. We perceive that we shall find in him a strong advocate of our favorite carbonaceous system. There is nothing like it. - Ed].

(To be Continued).