BRIGHT ON GRAPE CULTURE. 77 



success. The border is deep, and rich, and the vines 

 are truly magnificent. Such a border as that cannot 

 assuredly give out, for it gets more rich food every year, 

 and vines of such luxuriance certainly cannot meet with 

 check or disaster. So they reason. 



But sometimes in the third year, they begin to dis- 

 cover that there is something the matter with the vines. 

 The bunches are large, the berries are large, but the 

 foliage begins to decline a little, and the fruit does not 

 color quite so well as usual. 



The next year or two, the vines continue to produce 

 large wood, but they break in the spring badly, the 

 wood being immature, and are much subject to mildew. 

 The roots have now penetrated too deeply to maintain 

 a healthy relation to the top of the vine. 



In the fifth year the fruit sometimes scarcely colors 

 at all ; the berries remain red, and a great portion of 

 them shank. 



During the sixth and seventh years, the vines in 

 deep, rich borders begin to decline very rapidly. The 

 leaves, instead of being, as before, a foot or fifteen 

 inches in diameter, will often be seen no larger than 

 maple leaves ; and thus the work of destruction goes on 

 till the eighth and ninth years, (when the vines, if pro- 

 perly managed, ought to be in the greatest perfection,) 

 and then, as we often see in deep borders, they nearly 

 die out, and become entirely useless. This is the his- 

 tory of such borders, and of deep planting, in vineries 

 all around Philadelphia. 



