THE GEAPE. 123 



cultivators is the best of all black grapes and deservedly 

 the most popular, is the Black Hamburgh, which owes its 

 name to having been introduced into this country from 

 Hamburgh in 1724, though it came originally fromPranck- 

 enthal on the Rhine, and is known all over the Continent 

 as the Eranckenthal Grape. When in perfection the skin 

 of the berries is quite black, covered with a thick bloom, 

 but it will sometimes appear brown or red even on a vine 

 which has hitherto borne fruit of the most approved hue, 

 this deterioration being a sure symptom of something 

 wrong in the soil or temperature of the vinery. This 

 variety grows better in England, in the open air or under 

 glass without fire heat, than any other kind ; and when 

 bunches of seven different sorts, including the Sweet- 

 water, Muscadine, &c., all grown in orchard-houses, were 

 sent to the Fruit Committee of the London Horticultural 

 Society, in 1861, for the purpose of comparing their re- 

 lative merits, the preference was unanimously given to the 

 Black Hamburgh, as evidently the best fitted for that mode 

 of culture. It ripens in October. 



What is commonly sold as the "Portugal Grape" is really 

 the "White Hamburgh, which, keeping for a remarkably 

 long time after it is ripe, is imported here, chiefly from 

 Holland, in very vast quantities, it is said to the value of 

 10,000 yearly. 



The size of the berries is more an object with English 

 fruit-growers than the size of the bunches ; but these 

 sometimes attain great magnitude, those on the vines in 

 the conservatory at Chiswick, in 1860, varying in measure- 

 ment from 6 in. to 2 ft. in length. The largest bunch ever 

 grown in England was produced by the Duke of Port- 

 land's gardener at Welbeck, Mr. Speechley (called " the 

 very father of vine-growing in England"), and the tree 

 which bore it was a Syrian vine, which was accustomed to 

 yield clusters of such large proportions that a single 

 "shoulder" of one of them was enough to fill a good- 

 sized dish. This one most famous bunch weighed 19|- Ibs., 

 and when transmitted by its noble owner as a present to 

 a friend at a distance, was carried, suspended to a pole, 

 on the shoulders of two men, in the style of the spy- 



