TJic Country Gcntlenimi s Magazine 



165 



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GRAPE GROWING FOR PROFIT. 



SEVERAL years since Mr James Lindsay, 

 who has long held the first place among 

 Scottish fi-uit merchants, purchased the beau- 

 tiful small estate of Dryden Bank, about six 

 miles from Edinburgh ; and he immediately 

 set about realizing the idea which he had 

 long entertained, of growing grapes for sup- 

 plying the market during the winter festive 

 season, commencing with the Christmas holi- 

 days and ending with that period in spring 

 when early forced grapes begin to appear in 

 the principal fruit shops ; a period of the year 

 during which our supplies have hitherto 

 mainly consisted of those ill-ripened, fla- 

 vourless, thick-skinned, saw-dust packed, 

 imported grapes, which do not even possess 

 the recommendatory property of being orna- 

 mental, while they are almost invariably so 

 very inferior in quality as to deserve the ap- 

 pellation of health-injuring, or the worse one 

 of health-destroying. 



The grounds of Dryden Bank have a rather 

 steep-sloping surface, facing almost due south ; 

 and looking from their higher parts as well as 

 from the elegant and commodious dwelling- 

 house, up the narrow, steep, and romantic 

 valley, where the North Esk tumbles 

 over its rocky bed between high ascending 

 wooded cliffs. " Classic Hawthornden," the 

 antient residence of Drummond, the poet 

 and historian, is seen perched upon its 

 craggy summit, surrounded with fine old 

 trees, conspicuous among which appears the 

 great wide-spreading plane, under which he 

 and Ben Jonson often sat holding kindred 

 communings, when the latter travelled on 

 foot from London in order to pass a few 

 weeks with the Scottish poet ; the whole 



environed by the fertile fields and woodlands 

 of Mid-Lothian, and backed by the distant 

 range of the Moorfoot Hills. Here, in the 

 old garden, still exists a fruit - bearing 

 but scanty remnant of the original Haw- 

 thornden apple tree. And among the 

 caverned depths of unknown extent, 

 with which the rock is penetrated, in 

 which Pictish kings and their retainers are 

 said to have found safe retreats, as did also 

 Sir Alexander Ramsay and his patriotic 

 associates in the days of Robert The Bruce, 

 is "The Cypress Grove" — a solitary cave 

 where Drummond is said to have com- 

 posed many of his poems, and which still 

 bears this, the name of one of his most 

 celebrated prose productions. 



The former garden of Dryden Bank, 

 measuring about one acre, and situated on 

 the more gently sloping lower part of the 

 property, Mr Lindsay resolved on convert- 

 ing into a glass-covered vineyard, which he 

 commenced in 1866 by the erection of two 

 east and west lying, lean-to vineries, each 160 

 feet in length, the one being 1 5 and the other 

 18 feet in width, with a height at back of 15 

 feet and 16 feet respectively ; both are heated 

 with hot water ; pipes of 4 inches in, diameter 

 being employed for that purpose in the former, 

 and six in the latter, which have been found 

 amply sufficient. The rafters are formed of 

 the best red Baltic pine battens, and the glass 

 used weighs 21 ounces per square foot, so 

 that the essentials of stability and durability 

 are secured in so far as practicable with wood 

 and glass. Ventilation is provided for through 

 low perpendicular sash openings in the fronts, 

 and on the top of the back walls ; their open- 



