100 THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



tliousand bunches. One of these, that at Hampton Court, I 

 saw in the summer of 1836 ; it then was bearing a crop of 

 over two thousand bunches ; they were generally, small, how- 

 ever, and the berries were not large ; the man having charge 

 of the house said that it did not look as well as usual. In 

 1846, a gentleman who visited it describes the bunches as 

 small, but numerous, and looking well ; the roof of the house 

 is covered with the vine ; it is trained horizontally, and passes, 

 two or three times, the whole length of the roof. The pruning 

 is on the spur system, but a shoot is laid in, wherever wanted 

 to fill a vacant space. 



" The vine at Hampton Court Palace, which was planted 

 in the year 1769, has a stem of thirteen inches in girth, and 

 a principal branch one hundred and fourteen feet in length, 

 which, in one year, produced two thousand and two hundred 

 bunches of grapes, each weighing, on an average, a pound." 

 — Pldllip's Companion to the Orcliard. 



Of the Hampton Court vine, Speechly says : " When I 

 saw this magnificent vine in 1788, the crop of grapes was 

 moderate, and the bunches, in general, very small. But 

 since then, I have, from time to time, been informed of its 

 having often produced most abundant crops, and of large and 

 well-perfected bunches." 



" Mr. Eden planted a vine of the Black Hamburgh sort, 

 at Valentine House, Essex, in the year 1758, which is the 

 parent of the vine at Hampton Court, and has extended itself 

 to upwards of two hundred feet in length, being so productive 

 that it ripened two thousand bunches of grapes in 1819." — 

 Pldllip's^ etc. 



" At Valentine, near Ilford, in Essex, (England.) the seat 

 of the late Sir Charles Raymond, there is a vine, now grow- 

 ing, whose branches extend and furnish the entire roof of a 

 pine stove, which is seventy feet long by eighteen feet broad. 

 And, moreover, some of the branches are trained downwards, 

 and also cover a great part of the back wall of the said bTiild- 

 ing. The vine, which is the Black Hamburgh, was planted 



