294 Vineyard Culture. 



pheric influences analagous to those causing the potato 

 rot. Thus, the cause of the disease remaining still un- 

 determined, it has been difficult to find its remedy. 

 Numerous means have been employed to combat it 

 since its invasion of France in 1849. We shall only 

 speak of the three following processes, which, alone, 

 have yielded satisfactory results. The first consists in 

 the employment of flower of sulphur, sprinkled over all 

 the green parts when they are wet. This process, orig- 

 inally employed by Mr. Kile, an English horticultu- 

 rist of Leyton, was first tried in France in 1849, by M. 

 Marie, a physician of Ecouen. 



All the vine-growers of Thomery employed it on a 

 large scale in 1851. They obtained very good results 

 therefrom, but objected that it caused the sulphur to 

 adhere to the grapes, so as to damage the sale. More- 

 over the necessity of employing water, rendered this 

 process somewhat unadapted to vineyards. 



The second means is that recommended in 1852, by 

 M. Grison, head gardener of the kitchen-garden hot- 

 houses at Versailles. It consists in the employment of 

 hydrosulphate of lime, prepared as follows : One pound 

 of flower of sulphur, and an equal volume of newly- 

 slaked lime, are well mixed together. This mixture, 

 placed in a cast-iron vessel containing five and three- 

 quarter pints of water, is boiled for ten minutes. The 

 liquid is first allowed to clear itself, and is then de- 

 canted. This liquid is a solution of the hyrosulphate 

 of lime, and is kept in a closed vessel, to use as occa- 

 sion requires ; it is then diluted with one hundred times 

 its volume of water, and all the green parts of the vine 

 are wetted with it. This mode of operating, employed 



