REMARKS ON VARIETIES SELECTED 35 



when gardener to the Marquis of Bath, Longleat, War- 

 minster, excelled in the cultivation of this grand grape. 

 Four vines one in each corner filled one of three 

 sections of the immense lantern-span roofed vinery, about 

 two hundred and fifty feet long, thirty feet wide and of 

 proportionate height ; the vines were trained horizontally 

 in a line with the front ventilators, rods being taken up 

 the trellis at intervals of five feet. It took some years 

 to get four vines to furnish the trellis in this large house 

 with fruiting wood, but supernumeraries were planted 

 at the same time as the four vines destined to fill the 

 whole house, in order to yield crops of grapes dur- 

 ing the first years, the bottom spurs as well as the 

 vines themselves being removed as the permanent vines 

 required more space, until the last supernumerary was 

 discarded. In this way a full crop of grapes might be 

 said to have been secured from the second year after 

 planting. I have frequently seen the grapes at Long- 

 leat, and finer crops of Muscats I have never seen in 

 any other part of the United Kingdom ; in fact, I have 

 never, taking the crop throughout, seen any Muscats 

 to equal the Longleat Muscats, many of the bunches 

 exceeding six and a half pounds in weight, the 

 berries, too, being of great size and substance, and 

 borne on unusually stout foot-stalks. The colour, 

 bloom and flavour of the berries left nothing to be 

 desired in this direction. It is only fair to Mr William 

 Taylor, the late Mr Pratt's predecessor in the manage- 

 ment of the Longleat gardens, to say that he planned and 

 superintended the erection of the "big" vinery at Long- 

 leat, made the borders, planted the vines and grew and 

 fruited them for some years before leaving. One of the 

 largest as well as the oldest vines of Muscat of Alexan- 

 dria in the country is that at Harewood House, Leeds. 

 It was planted by a Mr Chapman in 1783, and has long 

 since filled a vinery sixty feet by eighteen feet with 



