122 OUR COMMON FETJITS. 



rest upon each other ; and the favourite plan of one fruit- 

 grower was to cut off a portion of the stem along with 

 the bunch (which in any case promotes the preservation 

 of the fruit), and insert the part below the grapes into a 

 bottle of water, which was occasionally changed. Others 

 content themselves with sealing each end of that portion 

 of the branch to which the fruit is attached. 



Tusser, in 1560, speaks only of two kinds of grapes 

 grown in England, the white and the red ; but so much 

 have varieties multiplied since then that the list made 

 by Thompson in 1842 enumerates 99 kinds, and by the 

 present time a dozen or two more have been added, while 

 in foreign countries they are numbered by hundreds, 

 though practically there is but one species grown in 

 Europe. It was affirmed, however, by London that in 

 Britain we have not only the best varieties, but that we 

 grow the fruit to a larger size and of a higher flavour than 

 anywhere else in the world. This seems a bold assertion, 

 considering that the climate of Southern Europe must be 

 so much more congenial to the vine ; but it must be re- 

 membered that it is of dessert grapes that he is speaking, 

 and that in wine countries the chief care and attention are 

 concentrated on vineyard grapes. The opinion, too, is con- 

 firmed by more recent testimony, for whereas we might 

 rather expect to be surpassed in this particular by Prance 

 than perhaps by any other nation, yet a correspondent of 

 the Gardener's Chronicle, in reporting the great Paris Hor- 

 ticultural Exhibition of 1858, observes concerning the 

 grapes, that they consisted of sorts which ripen mostly in 

 the open air, and, to those who had seen the fine grapes 

 shown a fortnight before at our own Crystal Palace, had 

 but a miserable appearance.* The IB on Jardinier, too, for 

 1864, after giving a rather limited list of the kinds now 

 in cultivation, concludes with an admission that " many 

 other dessert sorts might be introduced with advantage." 

 The English-grown kind, which in the opinion of our 



* The result of the great International Exhibition in the gardens of the 

 London Hort. Soc., in October, 1862, only afforded further proof of the sur- 

 passing excellence of English hothouse grapes. 



