^'OTICE EESrECTING TWO VARIETIES OF GRAPES. 265 



shoot produces two bunches, and brings them to perfection. It 

 will hang long on the vine without decay or shrivel ; and since 

 I have obtained it I have cut away all my Frontignans. 



If you recomuKnid my Nice Cluster Grape for culture on the 

 open wall, let it be planted against a south-east wall, in a very 

 shalloiv light soil, the depth not to exceed 18 or 20 inches, the 

 vine being so unusually vigorous in growth of wood that a deep 

 soil would retard its ripening ; and I believe this observation 

 applies to all grapes trained to south walls, for on the shallow- 

 ness of the soil depends the earliness of ripening. 



Specimens of the grapes referred to in the above communica- 

 tion were received, and the follo\\'ing notes were made respect- 

 ing them by Mr. Thompson, November 17, 1846 : — 



The Nice Black Cluster — so called from its having been 

 " raised from tlie White Nice, fertilised with the Small Black 

 Cluster" — partakes of the loose shouldering of the female parent, 

 and black colour of the male. 



From a vinery, the bunch was nearly a foot in length, with 

 long loose shoulders ; berries small, roundish or roundish-oval, 

 on long pedicels, black ; juice a little tinged with puq^le, sugary. 

 Probably an excellent wine grape, the looseness of the bunch 

 admitting, witliout thinning, a play of sun and air. 



From a south wall, the berries were not so sugary ; but the 

 formation of the saccharine principle was this year much checked, 

 as Mr. Williams observes, by the cloudy and wet weather which 

 occurred at the time, when out-of-doors' grapes would have other- 

 wise acquired the highest perfection probably ever known in this 

 climate. This variety was first noticed in the Transactions of 

 the Society, second series, vol. ii. p. 112. 



Tlie Seedling White Grape sent along with the above, raised 

 from the " White Muscadine (Chasselas) " and pollen of the 

 " White Muscat of Alexandria," has acquired a little of the 

 Muscat flavour of the latter, and is a very good imitation of a 

 Frontiffnan, dese^^'ing■ farther trial. 



XXXI. — On the White Rust of Cabbages. By the Rev. 

 M. J. Berkeley, M.A., F.L.S. 



(Communicated August 26, 1848.) 



There are few natural groups of plants which have not their 

 own peculiar parasite, whicli lives and decays, indeed, for 

 years unheeded by the common observer, until some season 

 peculiarly suited to its growth arrives, when it is too abundant 



VOL. III. T 



