CHAP. II. DESSERT FRUITS. 213 



It will be a matter of the highest interest to ascertain the 

 result of the introduction of these several kinds of vines, as I 

 find it asserted by Mr. J. L. Denman that " no attempt hitherto 

 made to transport a particular species of vine to another country 

 has ever been attended with such a measure of success as to 

 reproduce in the new site precisely the same distinctive properties 

 that signalized it in the old. Whatever care may be bestowed 

 to select an identity of nutrition, aspect, and climate, the Grape 

 on removal loses its former and special attributes. . . . No 

 European plant retains its identity when transferred to American 

 ground." * 



There are three varieties of Grape-vine issued from the Gardens 

 of the Agri-Horticultural Society, the Black Hamburg, the 

 Malaga, and the Muscatel. In the Gardens of the Society these 

 vines produce no fruit. Whether the plants propagated from 

 them do so elsewhere in the neighbourhood I am unaware. An 

 unthriving-looking vine of the Black Hamburg creeps along 

 a dingy unwholesome wall in the Metcalfe Hall compound, and 

 is stated to bear fruit sometimes. 



The most successful cultivation of the Grape-vine that I have 

 any knowledge of in the vicinity of Calcutta has been with some 

 large vines trained upon the portico of Mr. W. Stalkart's house 

 at Gooseree. The cuttings whence these vines were raised, Mr. 

 Stalkart told me, were brought out overland by a friend in his 

 trunk. The success he met with appeared to me to arise in 

 some measure from the robust nature of the particular kind of 

 vine; for the great difficulty with most kinds of vine near 

 Calcutta is to get them to make any growth at all : just as in 

 the North- West Provinces it is the exuberance of their growth 

 which it is found so difficult to counteract. 



The Grape-vine will not do well without some kind of support. 

 The usual one in this country, and about the best that could be 

 adopted, is constructed as follows : 



Along each side of a pathway about ten or twelve feet wide, 

 and running north and south, construct brick pillars, about 

 fifteen inches square and seven feet high, at intervals of seven 

 or eight feet apart. Between the pillars place a trellis-work of 

 bamboo. Lay a beam or strong pole from the top of each 

 pillar to the top of the one on the opposite side of the pathway, 

 * The Vine and its Fruit/ p. 4. 



