CHAPTER II. 



PLANTING VINES. PREPARATION OF THE BORDER. 



IT is very necessary to make a good preparation before 

 planting vines in the first instance ; but the way it 

 is to be done is a matter on which great diversity of 

 opinion exists. I have known many vines ruined by 

 packing strong stimulants upon their roots. It is 

 quite a mistake to plant young vines, in the first in- 

 stance, in undecomposed animal matter. It is another 

 mistake, too, merely to make a vine border of only 

 about six or eight feet in width and then to confine the 

 roots to that limited space, composed, it may be, of very 

 fatty matter, burying it five or six feet deep. Let any 

 man examine the roots of vines so treated and he will 

 find that they are mere fibreless channels except at 

 the extremities, which possess a few spongioles of a 

 healthy nature simply because they have saved them- 

 selves from the surcharge of the acid compounds and 

 were buried so deep that some purifying influences 

 could reach them and render them sufficiently nutritious 

 for the real benefit of the vines. On examination of 

 the roots of vines of five or more years so situated, it 

 will be seen that the young fibrous roots the life of the 

 whole plant, and on which are found the spongioles or 

 feeders have made their way to those parts of the bed 

 where less of the superabounding fatty matter is to 



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