l?5 On the Cuhwation of the Vinef 



time nor fufficieht ftrength to mature the juice; :^nd tliey 

 become filled with a very liquid fluid, which holds in folutiou 

 too fmaU a quantity of lYigar for the produce of the decern- 

 polition to be either ftrong or fpiritous. 



The rains which fall when the grapes are Increafing in 

 fize, are exceedingly favourable : they ^ffift the organifation 

 of the vegetable, furnifli it with its principal nutrition, and, 

 if continued heat facilitate the maturation, the quality of the 

 grapes muft be perfect. 



Winds are always prejudicial to the vine : they dry up the 

 branches, the grapes, and the foil ; and they produce, parti- 

 cularly in itrong foil, a hard compact cruft, which impedes 

 the free paflage of the air and water, and by thefe means 

 maintains around the roots a putrid moifture which tends to 

 corrupt them. The farmers, therefore, carefully avoid plant- 

 ing vines in fituations' expofcd to wind: they prefer calm 

 lituations, well {heltered, where the^plants may be expofed 

 only to the benign influence of the luminary towards which 

 they are placed. 



Fogs are alfo exceedingly dangerous to the vine : they 

 are deftru<Slive to the bloflbms, and do eflential hurt to 

 the grapes. Befldes the putrid miiifmata, which they too 

 often dcpofit on the produ6lions of the fields, they are al- 

 ways attended with the inconvenience of moiftening the fur- 

 faces, and of forming on them a (Iratum of water, more fub- 

 je6l to evaporation, as the interior of the plant and the earth 

 are not moiftened in the fame proportion ; fo that the rays 

 of the fun, falling upon this light ftratum of moifture, caufc 

 it to evaporate in an inftant ; and the fenfation of coolnefs, 

 determined by the ad; of evaporation, is fucceeded by a heat 

 the more prejudicial as the tranfition is abrupt. It very often 

 happens that the clouds fufpended in the atmofphere, by 

 concentrating the rays of the fun, dirc6l them towards parts 

 of the vines, by which means they are burnt. In the fcorch- 

 ing climates of the fouth it is fometimes obferved that the 

 natural heat of the foil, ftrengthened by the reverberation 

 from certain rocks, pr whitifti kinds of foil, dries up the 

 grapes ejcpofed to them. 



Though heat bt nccclTary for ripening the grapes, giving 



them 



