ON GRAPE VINE BORDERS. 



273 



but not of heat. What use do the roots 

 make of air when they get it ? Air at the 

 roots of plants is as much out of place as in 

 the stomach and bowels of animals. What 

 little air is about the roots of plants, and in 

 the alimentary canal of animals, is only 

 useful as an agent of decomposition. 



The greatest disadvantage of too great 

 depth is the comparative stagnation of the 

 water, which is the vehicle of the food to 

 the roots. This is the disadvantage of over- 

 sized pots, and the contrary condition is the 

 source of the advantage of small pots. An 

 animal receives its nourishment by the pas- 

 sage of its food through its stomach and 

 bowels, which have an absorbing surface 

 like the roots of plants; the difference be- 

 ing that the absorbents are on the outside 

 in plants, and on the inside in animals. 

 Animals, it is true, decompose their food. 

 Plants only select it. What constipation 

 is to an animal, stagnancy of water is to a 

 plant — as plants absorb their food as it is 

 brought to them by the movement of water, 

 containing carbonic acid, ammonia, and min- 

 eral ingredients. This movement is caused 

 by gravitation when the ground is saturat- 

 ed, and by capillary attraction, which re- 

 sults from the evaporation that takes 

 place from the surface. It is easy enough 

 to convey nourishment in the depth of the 

 earth, but if it stagnates there, it is of no 

 use. The problem, then, resolves itself 

 into this: to promote evaporation, and to 

 convey heat deep in the earth. The mode 

 in which I propose to effect these objects 

 is, to pass porous drains communicating 

 with the external atmosphere through the 

 grape border. To promote evaporation, the 

 air may be made to enter one aperture, and 

 pass out at the other, by elevating one end 

 of the tubes a few feet above the other. 

 The same end may be attained by sinking 

 one or more brick cisterns, laid without 



mortar, and about 3 feet deep — open of 

 course on the top. In this way I think to 

 give to an open border the most essential 

 advantages of pots. 



I need hardly add that the evaporators 

 should be closed in winter on the same 

 principle that a vine border is protected by 

 a covering of straw, or muck, or manure. 

 The plan proposed is applicable to other 

 plants beside vines; and while it leaves 

 them the full benefit of heat and evapora- 

 tion from the surface, gives them a less 

 uncertain supply of both, and more com- 

 plete security against frost and drouth. In 

 what respect is it better than a border rest- 

 ing upon rocks, stones or gravel ? Obvi- 

 ously for the reasons above given, and their 

 protection from cold ; and further, because 

 it prevents the great waste of the richness 

 of a border so situated, where a drenching 

 rain leeches the soil, and carries its nutri- 

 tious principles below the action of capil- 

 lary attraction, which alone constitutes the 

 difference between the open soil and a 

 leech barrel. It gives in fine, two warming 

 and two evaporating surfaces, instead of 

 one ; the artificial surface being in some 

 respects better than the natural. 



The nearest approach in nature to the 

 condition of the roots of vines, in the artifi- 

 cial situation in which I would propose to 

 place them, is a vineyard on a hill side 

 with porous rocks, especially such as con- 

 tain appropriate nutriment. Here there 

 is constantly descending water, no stag- 

 nation of it, and withal secured against 

 both drouth and cold in the water and 

 heat which the rocks slowly give out. On 

 a very steep acclivity, many of the advan- 

 tages I have sought in the plan here sketch- 

 ed, might be attained by a succession of 

 terraces with walls of brick, lime stone, or 

 even sand stone. If the descent should be 

 at as large an angle as 45 degrees, the 



