GRAPE. 



it is to be had in the highest degree of perfection from 

 March to January. 



The Vine will thrive in any soil that has a dry bottom ; 

 and in such as are rich and deep it will grow luxuriantly, 

 and produce abundance of large fruit; in shallow, dry, 

 chalky, or gravelly soils, it will produce less fruit, but of 

 better flavour. Speechly recommends dung reduced to a 

 black mould, the dust and dirt of roads, the offal of animals, 

 or butcher's manure, horn shavings, old rags, shavings of 

 leather, bone dust, dung of deer and sheep, human excrement 

 when duly meliorated by time, a Winter's frost, and re- 

 peatedly turning over. Abercrombie says, that dung out of 

 a cow-house, perfectly rotted, is a fine manure for the Vine ; 

 he recommends drainings from dunghills to be used over the 

 ground once in ten or fourteen days from the time the bud& 

 rise, till the fruit is set, and that fresh horse dung be spread 

 over the ground in Autumn as a manure, and also to protect 

 the roots from the inclemency of the weather ; some, 

 however, disapprove of manuring high, as being calculated 

 to produce wood rather than fruit. 



The general mode of propagating the Vine is by cuttings, 

 either a foot or more long, with a portion of two year old 

 wood, or short, with only one bud, or one bud and a half 

 joint, &c. Vines are to be had at the nurseries, propagated 

 either from layers, cuttings, or eyes ; but plants raised from 

 cuttings are generally preferred ; many are of opinion that 

 it is a matter of indifference from which class the choice is 

 made, provided the plants are well rooted, and in good 

 health, and the wood ripe. A mode of very general utility 

 is to select the plants in the nursery a year before wanted, 

 and to order them to be potted in very large pots. Varieties 

 without end are raised from seed, and it is thought that by 

 propagating from the seeds of successive generations, some 

 sorts may ultimately be procured, better adapted for ripen- 

 ing their fruit in the open air than now known. A seedling 

 Vine, carefully treated, will show blossoms in its fourth or 

 fifth year ; say that it produces a fair specimen of its fruit 

 n the sixth year, then a new generation may be obtained 



