THE GRAPE. 227 



The border should be thoroughly prepared previously to 

 planting the vines, by excavating it two feet deep and filling it 

 up with suitable compost. This is best formed of one half 

 loamy turf, well rotted by having been previously laid up in 

 heaps, (or fresh and pure loamy soil from an old pasture or 

 common ;) one third thoroughly fermented horse or cow ma- 

 nure, which has laid in a turf-covered heap for three months ; 

 and one third broken pieces of charcoal and old lime rubbish. 

 The whole to be thoroughly mixed together before planting the 

 vines. 



The vines themselves should always be planted in a border 

 prepared inside the house, and in order to give the vines that 

 extent of soil which is necessary for them, the best cultivators 

 make an additional border twelve or fourteen feet wide outside, 

 in front of the vinery. By building the founda;ion of the front 

 wall on piers within a couple of inches of the surface, and sup- 

 porting the wall above the surface on slabs of stone reaching 

 from pier to pier, the roots of the vines easily penetrate to the 

 border on the outside. 



The vines should be planted early in the spring. Two year 

 old plants are preferable, and they may be set eighteen inches 

 from the front wall one below each rafter, or, if the latter are 

 over three feet apart, one also in the intermediate space. 



The pruning and training of the vines we have already de- 

 scribed. The renewal system of pruning we consider the best 

 in all cases. The spur system is, however, practised by many 

 gardeners, with more or less success. This, as most of our 

 readers are aware, consists in allowing a single shoot to extend 

 from each root to the length of the rafters ; from the sides of this 

 stem are produced the bearing shoots every year ; and every 

 autumn these spurs are shortened back, leaving only one bud 

 at the bottom of each, which in its turn becomes the bearing 

 shoot, and is again cut back the next season. The fruit is 

 abundantly produced, and of good flavour, but the bunches are 

 neither so large nor fair, nor do the vines continue so long in a 

 productive and healthy state as when the wood is annually re- 

 newed. 



" The essential points in pruning and training the vine, what- 

 ever mode be adopted, according to London, " are to shorten the 

 wood to such an extent that no more leaves shall be produced 

 than can be fully exposed to the light ; to stop all shoots pro- 

 duced in the summer that are not likely to be required in the 

 winter pruning, at two or three joints, or at the first large 

 healthy leaf from the stem where they originate ; and to stop 

 all shoots bearing bunches at one joint, or at most two, beyond 

 the bunch. As shoots which are stopped, generally push a 

 second time from the terminal bud, the secondary shoots thus 

 produced should be stopped at one joint. And if at that joint 



