EXTRACTS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC. 145 



ynent in the shape of bones, will give vigor to the vine, and that 

 grapes will be produced six weeks earlier than on other vines, while 

 the bed will last good, if not forever, for an immense number of 

 years. 



All this part of the treatise may be read with much advantage 

 by those who possess greenhouses. We come now to that more 

 novel part of the volume, intended for those who would like, with 

 little cost or trouble, to grow grapes in the open air. 



In commencing this part of his subject, Mr. Hoare lays it down 

 as a rule that the roots of a vine will strike equally well upwards 

 as downwards. The great requisites for the soil are warmth, mo- 

 derate dryness, and great extent of surface. He proposes to secure 

 those requisites by building of good brickwork a hollow column, 

 three feet in diameter and five feet high. He prefers circular erec- 

 tions because the vine inay be easier trained, and during the height 

 of summer the sun will shine all around it. The base of this col- 

 umn should be formed of solid brickwork level with the earth, 

 and four feet square. When that is finished the erection of the 

 column should be commenced on it ; half bricks will do, if they 

 are perfectly strengthen-ed at four equally distant parts of the cir- 

 cle by one course of whole bricks. When two courses of bricks 

 have been thus laid down over the foundation of brickwork, the 

 interior of the column should be filled with the substances before 

 described, broken bricks, old mortar, charcoal, and bones, all being 

 closely packed, A half circular hole should now be cut in a brick 

 on that side of the column facing the south, for the stem of the 

 vine to be brought through. It should be one and a half inch in 

 diameter, and the like hole should be cut in the brick meant to fit 

 on it, so that the cavity may be round, and the dimension of it one 

 and a half inch. The vine should now be planted. It should be 

 three years old, and the bole of earth round the roots be loosely 

 bound round in flannel well soaked in soap-suds. So much of the 

 stem should be left outside the column as contains three good buds. 

 The soil should be a little raked away for the roots to lie in, and 

 the substances should then be packed closely round the roots, care 

 being taken that they are so placed that no mice shall creep in 

 through the hole made for the stem of the vine to pass through. 

 The next course of the bricks should then be laid on, the soil being 

 filled in as the column rises, and so on until the column rises within 

 1 three courses of its intended height. Then a course of bricks is 

 laid over the well packed substances at top, being jointed with 

 ' mortar only, and not laying a bed of it. With two more top 

 courses the column will be finished, care being taken so to lay them 

 as that they shall slope towards the centre of the column, forming 

 a cavity to catch moisture, which, piercing through the brickwork, 

 will descend to the soil. In this cavity raignionette or any shrub 



VOL. I. NO. 1. T 



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