THE DISEASES VINES ARE SUBJECT TO. 53 



compost already recommended in this treatise, and re- 

 laying the roots carefully in it. Let me add that, if 

 the locality is a wet one, I would double the amount of 

 burned clay and lime-rubbish in making up the com- 

 post. The class of roots that will be formed in this 

 relatively poorer border will differ widely from those 

 formed in the richer one. They will be much more 

 numerous, smaller, and woody, branching in every 

 direction, permeating its whole mass. They will ripen 

 before the autumn rain sets in, and in such dry, open, 

 and light soil will survive the winter, and be ready for 

 action early the following season. If it is objected that 

 such a compost is too poor to produce heavy crops of 

 grapes, I reply that it is easy, during the growing 

 season, to give one or two good waterings with liquid 

 manure. What is wanted is a host of healthy, hungry 

 mouths. It is easy to feed them when they exist, but 

 when they are dead and gone no feeding can avail ; for 

 be it remarked, that if even the points of the young 

 roots or spongelets are decayed, absorption of sap can- 

 not take place to any extent till they are restored ; and 

 this, in a rich, cold, damp border, is not an early process 

 with a vine. On this subject Dr Lindley remarks : 

 " It is not by the coarse old woody roots that the 

 absorption of food is most energetically carried on, 

 but by the youngest parts, and especially by the 

 spongioles." 



I have thus described what I think the primary 

 cause of shanking in grapes namely, the destruction 

 of the young roots in winter. I will now assign what 

 I consider the reason why early-forced grapes are less 

 subject to it than late. Early-forced vines have their 



