THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 217 



A free loose earth is what the vines demand, 

 Where wind aiid frost have help'd the lab'rer's hand, 

 And sturdy peasants deep have stirr'd the land. 



" This was the maxim of Virgil, and all theory and expe- 

 rience prove its value. Then there are the gaseous results 

 of decomposition, whose putrid odors render vine borders, 

 constructed on Mr. Roberts's plan, so intolerably disgusting. 

 Can any one seriously believe that such an agency is desira- 

 ble ? That it is even suitable ? Certainly we are not among 

 the number. It is perfectly well known that azotised ma- 

 nures in a state of high concentration, are injurious or de- 

 structive to vegetable life ; as is proved sufficiently by the 

 effect of certain animal matter, when thrown upon grass 

 land ; or as we have just now evidence of before our eyes, 

 in the form of a large oak tree which was almost killed a 

 few years ago, in consequence of the contents of an old cess- 

 pool having been dug into the ground about its roots. It is 

 only when diluted that such manures acquire the high value 

 which belongs to them. But it is not alone by their direct 

 action, that they affect plants injuriously ; the putrid gases 

 which they give out, are destructive to the young stems and 

 foliage of plants, in proportion to their strength ; such gases 

 are, up to a certain point, absolute poisons, although, below 

 that point, they are nutritious. It is not very long since, that 

 plants, in a small greenhouse, were almost destroyed in conse- 

 quence of a dead hedge-hog having been allowed to putrefy 

 in it ; and it appears, from Mr. Roberts's statement, that 

 some of his young vines, about thirty, are dead at the ends ; 

 those thirty being ' entirely confined to the roof vines planted 

 outside,' precisely those which the light gaseous products of 

 the rotten carrion, used in neighboring borders, though not 

 in their own, would be most Ukely to affect. Mr. Roberts, 

 however, is not inclined to refer the bad condition of his 

 vines to any such cause ; but he hints at the glass being 

 possibly in fault. He also refers to Mr. Nash's admirable 

 vine borders at Bishop's Stortford, which ' are stated to be 

 28 



