AGBICULTUBE OK THE RHINE. 179 



])revious to the planting', and it is then turned over with 

 the spade and pickaxe and trenched, so that the surface 

 is buried several feet (where the soil is deep enough) 

 and the subsoil brought up. Trenches are then opened, 

 and, in March or April, the cuttings that have beer, 

 buried in bundles from the previous autumn, and are be- 

 ginning to sprout, are planted two together at intervals of 

 four, five, or six feet from one another in rows five feet 

 asunder. Opinions differ as to M'hether it is better to 

 plant the cuttings when they begin to sprout in the 

 spring, or to wait till the autumn and plant them after 

 another year's fallow. The first manure employed is 

 the grass sod that has formed on the surface during the 

 preceding year, and it is deemed good to allow this full) 

 to decay before the plants are set. 



A more difficult matter is the choice of the direction 

 in which the rows are to run, for in a country where 

 sunshine is scanty (for the vine), too much care cannot 

 be bestowed upon the position of the plants so that one 

 may not shade the other. It is especially necessary that 

 the sunbeams should sufficiently warm the ground between 

 the rows, as the grower depends at least as much in the 

 ripening season upon this reflected heat as upon the direct 

 solar influence. Where the hills present rapidly changing 

 aspect, as in the tortuous side-valleys of the llhine, and 

 even in the Rhine vale itself, contiguous vineyards may 

 be seen with the line of their ascending rows varying in 

 direction v/itli every curve, but always opening to that 

 point of the heavens where the sun stands in the middle 

 of his course with regard to that individual slope of the 

 hill. 



7'he problem of obtaining good wine depends in a 



