PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



Several remarkable vines, at present existing in England, 

 have been already mentioned. A collection belonging to the 

 Duke of Portland, at Welbeck, is said to comprise above a 

 hundred kinds; and it was he who, in 1781, made a present 

 of a bunch of grapes to the Marquis of Rockingham, which 

 grew in his vinery, and weighed nineteen pounds and a half. 

 This bunch was nineteen and a half inches in the greatest dia- 

 meter, four and a half feet in circumference, and twenty-one 

 and three quarter inches in length, and was conveyed a dis- 

 tance of twenty miles by four men who carried it by pairs in 

 their turns, suspended on a staff. This was of the variety well 

 known by the title of the Syrian grape, and now found in 

 several collections in this country. 



In the year 1821, a bunch of white grapes was produced in 

 the garden of the Hon. F. G. Howard, at Elford-hall, Staf- 

 fordshire, which weighed fifteen pounds. 



In the vineyards, however, in the north of France and Ger- 

 many, where vines are grown as dwarf standards, the general 

 produce is only from three to nine bunches from each vine. 



CHAPTER V. 



Preliminary remarks on soil, culture, fyc. 



It is perhaps universally known that the nature of the vine 

 varies in different climates, and that its produce is also ope- 

 rated upon by the same influence. It is therefore necessary 

 to be acquainted with the cause of these differences in order to 

 establish certain general principles, and to know not only 

 what these are, but to be enabled to foresee and anticipate their 

 results. 



These causes consist in the difference of climates, in the 

 nature and exposition of the soil, in the character of the sea- 

 sons, and the methods of culture. We will therefore discuss 



