22 THE vine-dresser's manual. 



adopted. I have tried all these metliods. The first 

 vineyard I set out by merely digging holes ; another 

 by ploughing some sixteen inch.es deep, with a large 

 plough, drawn by four yoke of oxen, and followed with 

 a subsoil plough, drawn by a pair of horses, and another 

 by trenching as above suggested, thirty inches deep. 

 As to results I can only say, that the first planted 

 vineyard is now being dug up, because it was always 

 liable to every disease which haj)pened to prevail in the 

 season, having hardly yielded a fair compensation for 

 the labor expended ; the subsoiled vineyard does bet- 

 ter, but I have no hopes of its lasting more than twenty 

 years ; while a well-trenched vineyard, to the depth of 

 thirty-six inches, with such virgin soil as we have in 

 America, should, and doubtless would last — if otherwise 

 pi'operly managed — eighty to one hundred years. I 

 shall hereafter trench any vineyards I may plant, at 

 least thirty-six inches, and recommend the same course 

 to all others. 



I am informed that there is now being constructed in 

 Cincinnati, a large plough to be drawn by six yoke of 

 oxen, and warranted to plough the ground twenty-eight 

 inches deep. I have not seen this latest improvement, 

 and can only say that unless this plough does leave a 

 clean farrow, at least twelve inches wide of the prom- 

 ised depth, it will not answer. The large ploughs I have 

 seen do not accomplish this. They break the ground 



