THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 35 



SpeecUy recommends " the soil to be one fourth part of 

 garden mould, a strong loam ; one fourth, of the swarth or 

 turf from a pasture where the soil is a sandy loam ; one 

 fourth, of the sweepings and scrapings of pavements and hard 

 roads ; one eighth, of rotten cow and stable-yard dung mixed ; 

 and one eighth, of vegetable mould from reduced and decayed 

 oak leaves. The swarth should be laid on a heap, till the 

 grass roots are in a state of decay, and then turned over and 

 broken with a spade ; let it then be put to the other materials 

 and the whole worked together, till the separate parts become 

 uniformly mixed. 



" A garden, and consequently the hothouse, is sometimes 

 so happily situated in regard to soil that it seems, by nature, 

 adapted to the growth of the vine. The soil in which I have 

 known the vine to prosper in a superlative degree, without 

 artificial aid, was a kind of rich, sandy loam, intermixed with 

 thin beds of materials, like jointed slate or stones, and so very 

 soft in its nature as almost to be capable of being crumbled 

 between the fingers. The following extract from Virgil, on 

 this topic, will be deemed neither inapplicable nor disagreea- 

 ble to the candid reader : — 



' But where the soil, with fat'ning moisture fill'd, 

 Is clothed with grass, and fruitful to be till'd ; 

 Such as in cheerful vales we view from high, 

 Which dripping rocks with rolling streams supply, 

 And feed with ouze ; where rising hillocks run 

 In length, and open to the southern sun ; 

 Where fern succeeds, ungrateful to the plough. 

 That gentle ground to generous grapes allow.' 



" As the vegetable mould from decayed leaves cannot al- 

 ways be obtained, by reason that the leaves require to lie two 

 years before they become sufficiently putrid and reduced, it 

 may be necessary to substitute some other ingredient in lieu 

 of this part of the compost. Rotten wood reduced to a fine 

 mould ; the scrapings of the ground in old woods, where the 

 trees grow thick together ; mould out of hollow trees, and 

 sawdust reduced to a fine mould, provided it be not from 



