APPENDIX II. 



CULTIVATION" OF THE VINE UPON TRELLISES (EN 

 TREILLE) IN NORTHERN AND CENTRAL FRANCE, 

 ACCORDING TO THE NEW METHODS IN USE AT 

 THOMERY.* 



THE table grape cultivated in the open air acquires often in 

 Central, and with greater reason in Northern France, only an 

 imperfect maturity and mediocre quality, for want of proper 

 and sufficiently prolonged heat during the summer. The vine 

 starts with vigor, but its growth is too much prolonged, and 

 the ripening is not completed by the first cold weather of the 

 autumn ; for it is only when the sap channels cease to feed the 

 clusters that the grape begins to ripen. This prolonged vegeta- 

 tion is also the reason why the shoots are but imperfectly 

 formed, or matured by the August heat, and why the vintage 

 of the next year is less abundant. To avoid this cause of fail- 

 ure, the vine is disposed in the form of a trellis, upon walls 

 placed so as to enjoy the best exposure, and soils are chosen of 

 a light or medium nature, which are easily drained and 

 warmed ; lastly a series of operations is applied to the vine, 

 the result of which is to maintain it in a state of moderate 

 vigor, and above all to diminish the period of its yearly vege- 

 tation. The trellis of the Chateau of Fontainebleau was the 

 first which, in its culture, taken as a whole, best fulfilled the 



* The first trellises at Thomery were established about 120 years ago by a culti- 

 vator named Charmeux, grandfather of the present M. Baptiste Rose Charmeux. 

 He built the first wall for the purpose, leaving in the centre, according to a condi- 

 tion imposed upon him, a gate for the passage of the chase. 



