266 NE\V AMERICAN ORCHARDIST. 



which was inserted in the New England Farmer, was a 

 translation by him, from the Bon Jardinier, a work of 

 1000 pages, which has been annually published at Paris 

 for nearly a hundred years, with continued improvements. 

 In that work, this mode of training and pruning, and this 

 mode alone, is described by MM. Poiteau and Vilmorin, 

 the distinguished editors, this mode being considered by 

 them as the perfection of all and of every mode and system 

 that had ever been devised. The system has since been 

 introduced to notice in England, with more important par- 

 ticulars, by Mr. Robertson; and his account in the London 

 Horticultural Transactions is from the Son Jardinier, and 

 also the Pomone Frangaise of the Comte Lelieur, and other 

 sources. With very considerable portions of Mr. Lowell's 

 account, I have incorporated some valuable portions of 

 Mr. Robertson's ; together, also, with some personal ob- 

 servations of my own on this system, which were made 

 during a transient sojourn in that country. My account, 

 thus combined, and from every source which has come to 

 hand, is also theirs essentially, and is as follows : 



A light and deep soil is that which is best adapted to 

 produce grapes of excellent quality. In poorer soils, the 

 vine languishes ; in soils more consistent and strong, its 

 productions will be too gross, too watery, and its fruit will 

 have fewer good qualities. In the climate of Paris, the 

 vine requires a warm exposition, in order to ripen perfect- 

 ly its fruit; and it is seldom, except protected by a wall 

 facing to the south or east, that it finds the heat necessary 

 to its perfection. 



Of all the modes adopted, of training or of pruning the 

 vine, we shall speak only of one that practised at Tho- 

 mery, a village near Fontainbleau, because it appears to 

 us preferable to all others, both for its simplicity and its 

 results. 



As to its results, all the world knows them. The grapes 

 of Fontainbleau are proverbial. It is well known that the 

 most beautiful and the best grapes in the markets of Paris 

 come from Thomery, under the name of the Chasselas of 

 Fontainbleau. 



It has been supposed that the excellence of these grapes 

 is owing to the nature of the soil, and the favorable ex- 

 posure of Thomery. By no means. Thomery has not a 

 happy exposition. The quality of the soil is inferior, in 



