OF VINES. 179 



produced from branches of the same vine, trained 

 and pruned in the old way, were bad natural 

 grapes, and not above twice the size of large 

 currants. 



More fully to prove the success attending this 

 experiment, I next year trained five plants in the 

 same way, allowing the shoots intended for bearing 

 w^ood to run to their full length in Summer, training 

 them wherever there was a vacancy between the 

 old trees ; where there was none, I ran them 

 along the top of the wall, without topping them. 

 In Winter I trained them in a serpentine manner, 

 so as to fill the wall as regularly as possible : they 

 were as productive as those in the former year. 



After a three years trial, I thought I was w^ar- 

 ranted to follow the same practice with the whole ; 

 and in the year 1793, I sent, for the use of His 

 Majesty and the Royal Family, three hundred and 

 seventy-eight baskets of Grapes, each weighing 

 about three pounds, without planting a single 

 Vine more than there were the preceding year, in 

 which I was able to send only fifty-six baskets of 

 the same weight : and those so bad and ill-ripened 

 that I was ashamed of them, as they were not fit 

 to be sent to the table. 



In this year there was more than a quarter of 

 the crop destroyed by birds and insects, and rotted 

 by the wet. 



Although the above statement is within the 

 bounds of truth, it may appear to the reader like 

 an exaggeration j but it is in the power of every 



N 2 



