568 GENERAL REVIEW. 



by a series of judicious crosses with the two last-named varie- 

 ties or Royal Muscadine (which also not unfrequently ripens 

 its fruit on walls having a southern aspect), I feel confident a 

 race of prolific varieties, sufficiently hardy to stand our climate, 

 and valuable as affording Grapes for wine-making, would be 

 obtained. Even as it is, one cannot see the numerous in- 

 stances of the Vine ripening its fruit as it now does, with- 

 out any cultural attention, on cottage and tenement walls at 

 Knightsbridge, Brompton, South Kensington, and also in the 

 more suburban parts of London, without wishing that some 

 society or enlightened individual would take up the subject, 

 and give it a thorough trial in a favourable locality. The 

 Esperione, as we have before stated, almost invariably ripens 

 its fruit in this country in the open air on walls ; and it, to- 

 gether with other varieties, might possibly be much improved 

 for open-air culture by grafting them on the North American 

 species or varieties as stocks. At any rate, here is another 

 field of inquiry and research well worth the attention of our 

 go-ahead horticulturists. In the Herault, fifteen millions of 

 American Grape-Vines (principally the variety known as Clin- 

 ton) have been planted in districts where . the Phylloxera has 

 done the most damage. The unanimous opinion of the grow- 

 ers, to whom success or failure in the Vine crop is of the 

 greatest importance, is that the American Vines resist Phyl- 

 loxera better than the French ones ; and if in some cases the 

 quantity and flavour of the fruit is not all that could be de- 

 sired, they form strong and vigorous rooting stocks, on which 

 the approved French Vine Grapes succeed better than on their 

 own roots. 



In the 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' 1871, p. 836, is a highly 

 interesting and very suggestive article on the setting of Grapes, 

 from which it appears that the irregular and enormous berries 

 found in some bunches of Grapes are due to the enlargement 

 and displacement of the seeds, ~ these seeds being generally 

 barren or sterile. It is a singular fact that all stoneless or 

 seedless Grapes such as Black Monukka, and the Corinth or 

 " Currant " Grape of Zante have very small berries ; and we 

 often see the same depauperation shown in seedless berries of 

 Muscat, Hamburg, and other varieties, which have not been 

 properly fertilised. Hence it seems useless to hope for a race 

 of large-berried seedless Grapes ; but if we could get at the 

 secret hinted at above, and by some course of culture or man- 

 agement render the seeds of our Grapes larger, even at the 

 cost of sterility (since fertility is not required in the seeds of 

 fruit to be eaten), we might obtain a race of enormous-berried 



