448 VINE SOILS AND VINE MANURES. 



duty will be to get ready the young vines so as to have them in 

 vigorous health at the most suitable time for planting. Some good 

 cultivators plant strong two or three-year-old vines when they are in a 

 dormant state, as at that time the roots may be shaken clean out of the 

 soil, and spread in the most uniform manner in the newly-prepared 

 border. This is a very good plan, especially if the border at the time 

 of planting is of a genial temperature, say 70 to 80, or if fermenting 

 material can be so placed at the commencement of the growing season 

 as to bring it to that temperature. Then the plants will start vigorously ; 

 but if not, the check consequent upon the shaking is one which the 

 vine in a cold border takes a long time to recover. Again, the vine 

 may be cut down and started in the pot in which it had grown the 

 previous season; and then when it has made a strong shoot, two or 

 three feet long, it may be planted out, loosening so many of the roots 

 as will enable you to distribute them in the new soil without subject- 

 ing the plant to any very severe check. Still a check occurs, and 

 though such a proceeding may be sanctioned by custom, it is much 

 better for the present and permanent well-being of the plant that it 

 should be avoided. 



Apart from these checks at the time of planting, we have the con- 

 viction that a properly treated young vine makes a greater quantity of 

 young roots the first season than at any subsequent period of its 

 history ; and therefore, not to make use of them by the most careful 

 nursing is as absurd as to shake the plant out of the soil, and thus 

 destroy them. We have tried the experiment on many occasions, and 

 have invariably found that a properly managed young vine in the first 

 season's growth would make as strong a plant, and we believe an infinitely 

 better rooted one than a yearling or two-year-old plant cut down and 

 treated in the usual manner. Those who feel sceptical about the 

 profuseness of the roots in the first season's growth, have only to 

 take a yearling plant and a spring -rooted plant, and grow them on 

 together, and if, when both have attained the height of three feet, the 

 young plant has not the best and most vigorous roots, their experience 

 will be different from our own. The fact then being established, it 

 follows as a natural consequence, that it must be better to plant a vine 

 the first season of its growth, than by keeping it to run the risk of 

 losing that " wig" of roots which is so essential to its permanent suc- 

 cess. Hence we say, take the young vine. This we know is contrary 

 to received opinion. But never mind we speak from experience 

 extending over a practice of nearly forty years. 



The grape vine is propagated in several different ways : by eyes or 

 cuttings, by layers, by grafting and budding, and also (for raising new 

 varieties) by seed. The first step, however, towards complete success 

 is to prepare a bed of fermenting material, such as properly sweetened 

 dung, or dung and leaves, or in their absence, sweet tan. The bottom 

 heat should not be less than 80, nor should the atmospheric tempera- 

 ture fall much below 70, while it may rise to 85 or 90 with advan- 

 tage with sun heat. 



As a rule, more plants are raised from eyes or cuttings than in any 



