REMARKS ON VARIETIES SELECTED 45 



and the flesh firm, juicy, and, as stated above, good 

 in quality. Although for general use the vine is 

 best treated on the spur or close-pruning system, ex- 

 amples of the highest order in the way of immensely 

 large, well-coloured bunches can only be secured by 

 following what is known as the long-rod system that 

 is, by allowing a few strong lateral growths to attain to 

 a length of two or three feet before being stopped, and 

 afterwards pinching the sub-later growths and cutting 

 these back at pruning time to the most prominent eye or 

 bud irrespective of its being twenty or thirty inches 

 from the main stem. It is about twenty years last Sep- 

 tember since I paid a visit to the champion large bunch 

 grower of this grape, Mr Roberts (since deceased), 

 at Charleville Forest, Tullamore, Ireland. Among 

 the many fine specimens of different kinds of grape 

 which I noticed in the above-mentioned vineries, was a 

 single bunch of Gros Guillaume on the top couple of 

 feet of the previous year's main stem growth. If I re- 

 member rightly, the bunch was twenty-eight inches long 

 and twenty-four inches across the shoulders from point 

 to point as tied out, and tapering regularly downwards, 

 the berries being of good size, well coloured, and 

 covered with a good bloom. The bunch turned the 

 scale at nineteen pounds, two ounces. There was only 

 one bunch on the vine the bunch in question. Mr 

 Roberts exhibited a bunch of this grape in Dublin in 

 1877 which was said to have weighed twenty-three 

 pounds, five ounces. 



A few months after my visit to Charleville Forest, Mr 

 Roberts kindly sent me a few eyes of Gros Guillaume, 

 which I inserted in three-inch pots and put in heat in 

 January. These rooted in due time and were transferred 

 to six-inch pots, and finally planted among a dozen or 

 more other varieties in new borders towards the end of 

 May. Every alternate vine being a supernumerary, it 



