306 CULTURE OP THE VINE AT THOMERY. 



tain distance, it no longer gives fine bunches, but at its ex- 

 tremities; the spurs at the centre no longer produce any thing 

 but small clusters, and soon die of inanition. This inconve- 

 nience doubtless occurred to the Thomery gardeners, and by 

 an admirable calculation, they fixed upon the length of eight 

 feet for each vine. It follows from this arrangement, that the 

 sap is equally distributed to all the spurs, and that all the 

 bunches are well nourished, and more beautiful. 



We should also here remark, that, though the branches at 

 Thomery are only eight feet long, they do not throw out ex- 

 traordinary shoots, because the plants being set at twenty 

 inches only apart from each other, their roots dispute or 

 contend with one another for nourishment. The cover of 

 the wall also extending over the vine nine or ten inches, con- 

 tributes to check the growth, consequently the vine uninjured 

 by any excess yields fruit with all the qualities which it is sus- 

 ceptible of acquiring. 



" Such" says the translator, " is the strong, and to my 

 understanding, the sound language of men, living in a country 

 which has cultivated the grape ever since the invasion of 

 Julius Caesar, before the birth of our Saviour, and which 

 raises one million of pounds of grapes, for every pound raised 

 in England and America united. In revising the English 

 and French authorities on the culture of the vine, the result is^ 

 that in the British works I find nothing but chaos, and as you 

 would naturally expect from people who raise the grape as a 

 luxury only, no two writers agree with each other as to the pro- 

 per mode of training or pruning, and every new writer from 

 Hitt to Hay ward, has his own scheme. I would not intimate, 

 that in forcing grapes the English gardeners are not eminently 

 successful, but they are so in twenty different ways. They 

 are so attentive, so neat, so utterly indifferent to expense, that 

 success is hardly to be avoided. In France, on the other 

 hand, it is an affair of subsistence ; it is the great staple of 

 their whole country, even to the north of Paris ; yes, to a 

 latitude four degrees north of Quebec. 



" The Thomery gardeners have adopted the most economi- 



