THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 221 



porated ; the borders are forked up and watered with Uquid 

 manure once a year.' 



" Mr. Roberts will thus see that his fine Eshton grapes are 

 ' superseded ;' are, in fact, beaten by specimens more than 

 twice as good, and that, by the use of simple, inoffensive 

 means, which, moreover, do not render a garden more pesti- 

 lent than a London churchyard, and so dangerous to health, 

 that it AYOukl be infallibly indicted, if it existed within the reach 

 of any sanitory regulations. Should Mr. Roberts remain uncon- 

 vinced by these arguments, we would, at least, endeavor to per- 

 suade him to defer the use of carrion till the coming cholera 

 shall have quitted us." — Gardeners' CVironide, 1847, p. 851. 



In the Chronicle of January 1st, 1848, page 5th, is a de- 

 nial of Mr. Robert Elhott, of any allusion to Mr. Roberts, or 

 the vines at Raby Castle, in his article quoted as from this 

 paper, page 798, for 1847. 



" Mr. Roberts did not leave Eshton Hall till May six- 

 teenth, 1844. I went on the fifteenth of the same month, 

 and found the vines in a good growing state, with plenty 

 of grapes on them, and they still remain in good condition. 

 I have, on the rafters, thirtj^-four vines, and on the back 

 wall thirty, in all sixty-four vines, each of which produces, 

 yearly, twenty pounds of grapes.* My plan is, not to allow 



* I have often been asked, why I hmk the crop of grapes for the vine, at twenty- 

 five pounds. English writers upon the subject speak of much larger crops we find; 

 and, even by your own account, the Hampton Court vine ripens its two thousand 

 bunches. This is all true, but it is no reason why your vines, which have been 

 planted only three feet apart, and are allowed less than eighteen inches on each 

 side of the main shoot for its branches and fruit, should carry the crop that the 

 Hampton Court vine does, which has a great space of soil for the roots to roam in, 

 and the roof of an entire house, seventy feet long, and proportionately wide, for the 

 branches to ramble over. Again, this vine, and some others, mentioned under the 

 head of remarkable vines, are exceptions to the general bearing of the foreign kinds 

 of the grape, favorably affected by some peculiarity in their location, which it is not 

 likely will be the case with the vines in your grapery. Perhaps the difference in the 

 amount of fruit produced may not be so great as you suppose. If I am correct in 

 the length of the house for the Hampton Court vine, which produces the two thousand 

 bunches, the same length of house would contain, by my system, twenty-three vines, 

 and twenty-five pounds each vine would produce five liundred and seventy-five 

 pounds. The same number of vines on the back wall would produce, if well man- 



