DISEASES OF THE VINE. 465 



receive some check or injury, and then, if the proper roots are thrown 

 out of action, nature will endeavour to repair the damage by throwing 

 out roots to feed upon the atmosphere. Thus vines are started to 

 force early, the border is not protected, and the roots are in conse- 

 quence very cold so cold that they lie quite dormant, and are unable 

 to answer the call for assistance when the swelling buds or growing 

 branches require it. In such a case air roots will be thrown out, and 

 may assist the vine in the time of need. Again, as I remarked when 

 speaking of shanking, a border may be too dry, or too wet and cold, 

 and then air roots may be made ; but as a rule it may be allowed that 

 air roots will never be produced except the plant receives a check 

 from some cause or other. Of course some kinds of grapes are less 

 hardy than other kinds, and those, under the circumstances we have 

 named, are the first to produce air roots. 



Once (many years ago) two houses of first-rate vines were started 

 into growth, and when the shoots had attained the length of two 

 inches they came to a stand -still. A moist atmosphere was main- 

 tained, which had the effect of inducing the profuse production of air 

 roots all over the vines; but still the shoots made no progress, and 

 the incipient bunches withered and died. In this emergency the 

 border was examined, when it was found that the principal roots of 

 all the vines had been eaten off by field-mice, and every plant was 

 ruined. Can there be any doubt as to the cause of air roots in this 

 case ? I think not. Air roots, then, may be considered the result of 

 feeble or suspended root action, arising from any of the causes which 

 I have mentioned, or from others which may readily occur to the 

 cultivator. In no case can they be regarded as a sign of health, and 

 though vines that produce these roots may, under judicious manage- 

 ment, bear fair grapes, that does not alter the fact that their presence 

 is not a sign of health. 



Among the absurdities with which unthinking custom has ren- 

 dered vine-growers familiar, that which is called winter dressing is 

 the most mischievous ; we allude to the annual custom of stripping 

 the loose bark from the stem of the vines at the winter pruning. If 

 the stripping was confined to the bark actually loose, there would be 

 less room to complain ; but this scarifying is carried to such an extent 

 that many cultivators actually scrape the branches, so as to leave the 

 plants in a state of perfect nudity. In a state of nature we find no 

 such sloughing of the skin, but, on the contrary, the aged vine if left 

 to itself has a soft spongy covering of bark, which we really believe 

 has not been placed there except for some end. If we are asked what 

 those purposes are, we would say a shade from scorching sunbeams, a 

 shelter from cold draughts, and above all a sponge which sucks up 

 water from the shower, the syringe, or the saturated atmosphere, and 

 gives it off for the sustenance of the plant, when the sun may be 

 scorching and the atmosphere parched. Expose the main stem of an 

 early-ibrced vine to a cold draught, the sap ceases to flow, and the 

 leaves will droop and quickly wither ; protect the stem from the 

 cold, and the economy of the plant is immediately restored. With such 



H ii 



