18 COMPOSTS SUITABLE FOR VINES. 



add all the ingredients except the burned clay, which 

 need not necessarily be used, as the compost will be 

 porous enough without it, though it will do no harm ; 

 but add double the quantity of horse-droppings, bones, 

 and horn-shavings. Leaf-mould, when thoroughly re- 

 duced to a black earth, may with advantage be added 

 to any compost for vines, but never in a half-decayed 

 state, when it is certain to contain small pieces of 

 decaying sapwood, impregnated with the spores of 

 fungi that frequently enter into the roots of the vines, 

 where they develop themselves, and destroy the plants 

 suddenly. 



In confirmation of this I will cite two instances that 

 have come under my own observation since the pub- 

 lication of the second edition of this treatise. The 

 one case was that of a Grizzly Frontignan in full crop, 

 which died as suddenly as if cut over with a knife. 

 The gentleman to whom it belonged had the vine 

 taken up by the roots, and brought it to me for exa- 

 mination. I discovered that before the vine had been 

 planted it had been cut down and grown a second year 

 in the pot, and that there was a small hole with a 

 piece of decayed wood leading into the live wood of 

 the stem where the vine had been cut over to the 

 surface of the pot the second year it was grown. In 

 through this rotten channel the fungus found a ready 

 entrance, and the whole stem for several inches above 

 this point was one mass of fungi ; the pores of the 

 wood were completely filled with them, and death was 

 the natural result. 



The other case was that of a Muscat vine that had 

 received a wound in the stem, immediately under the 



