OUK COMMON FBUITS. 



process, they found the bunches on ringed vines showed 

 larger berries and had become ripe a fortnight earlier in 

 consequence of the treatment to which they had been 

 subjected, a result analogous to what has taken place in 

 other fruit-trees so handled, for the method is not a new 

 invention, but only newly applied to vines.* It has since 

 been tried in England, and found to have very little effect 

 on some sorts of vines, while on others the result has been 

 very promising, but scarcely sufficient time has yet been 

 afforded to pronounce a decisive opinion as to its probable 

 influence on English grape cultivation. 



Whatever were the virtues of our vintage in the olden 

 time, its excellence, so far as temperature was concerned, 

 was solely owing to the unassisted kindliness of our 

 much-reviled climate ; for it was not until the beginning 

 of the last century that grapes were fostered by artificial 

 heat, and 50 years more elapsed before they were culti- 

 vated under glass. G-lazed vineries are now generally 

 made use of by all who desire to reckon with tolerable 

 certainty on an annual crop of grapes, the result being so 

 much less precarious than when the fruit is exposed quite 

 unsheltered to every change of temperature ; and the de- 

 crease in the cost of the material as compared with what 

 it was a few years ago, together with simplified methods 

 of erection, render them no very costly luxuries to the 

 private consumer, while, as a profitable investment, they 

 have scarcely yet attracted so much attention as they 

 merit, Mr. Bivers pronouncing it to be " a national dis- 

 grace " that black Hamburgh grapes are so largely im- 

 ported annually from Holland, when, with cheap vineries, 

 they could be well grown in England to sell at a fair 

 profit for 6d. or Sd. per Ib. Yet, even when a tolerably 

 mild and equable climate is thus artificially secured, 

 much still depends upon the soil provided for the vine, 

 the grapes, for instance, grown at the Oakhill Gardens, 

 Barnet, having been sold year after year at Covent Gar- 



* Or rather to the production of dessert grapes, for in some parts of both 

 Italy and Franceit has long been occasionally.practisfidju vineyards, iu cold 



/J 



