152 THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



bj tlie addition of quicklime." — Horticultural Tour, Edin- 

 burgh, 1823. 



From Abercrombie's Practical Gardener. London, 1823. 



" Although vines will succeed as plants in any common 

 garden earth, it is advisable to allot them a dryish, warm, 

 melloAv, unexhausted soil, rich in good loam, or improved with 

 suitable manure, to the depth of three or four feet. A dry 

 bottom is requisite to keep the fruit from degenerating in 

 flavor." 



" Once a week, drainings of the dunghill may be mixed 

 with water, and applied to the roots when the grapes are 

 swelling," says Abercrombie. And again: " The vine out of 

 doors would not so often make poor returns in fruit, were the 

 soil kept warm and rich by an annual dressing when the plant 

 is at rest. Among the manures found of great avail in sup- 

 porting or recovering the fertility of vines, may be reckoned 

 rabbit's dung, duck's dung, sheep's dung, sheep's urine, drain- 

 ings of a common dunghill, vegetable mould, a compost in 

 which warm dry elements rather preponderate, a little hog's 

 blood, or bullock's blood, or the general oflfal of a slaughter- 

 house, with a qualifying portion of lime, or shell marl, fresh 

 loam, and sharp sand. Whether it be a fluid manure, or part 

 of the old earth be dug out and a compost substituted, the 

 application is chiefly to be made at the extremity of the roots. 

 The roots of old plants, in a yielding soil, are sometimes found 

 to have travelled to a wonderful distance in quest of nourish- 

 ment." 



In preparing the border for forcing, this author says the 

 materials and proportions should be of " top spit sandy loam 

 from an upland pasture, one third part ; unexhausted brown 

 loam from a garden, one fourth part ; scrapings of roads, free 

 from clay, and repaired with gravel or slate, one sixth part ; 

 vegetable mould, or old tan reduced to earth, or old stable 

 manure, one sixth part ; shell marl, or mild hme, one twelfth 

 part. From the time the buds rise, until the fruit is set, ma- 

 nure the border, once in ten days, with the drainings of the 

 dunghill, poured over the roots of the plants. 



