218 



HORTICULTURE. 



Fruit 

 Garden. 



employed, two by turns, carrying the bunch suspend- 

 ed on a pole or staff resting on their shoulders. No 

 doubt one man cunld have carried the bunch, if the 

 weight alone be considered ; but it was a great object 

 to transmit it without bruise or injury. This may tend 

 to illustrate a passage in the Sacred Writings ( Book of 

 Numbers, ch. xiii.), where the description of this mode 

 cf carrying a bunch of grapes has sometimes very un- 

 necessarily excited a sneer. 



127. In warmer countries than this, vines that are 

 suffered to grow without pruning attain a large size, 

 their stems assuming the appearance of trunks of trees. 

 Vines that are regularly pruned or dressed, cannot be 

 expected ever to arrive at such magnitude. Even in the 

 ungenial climate of Britain, however, they sometimes 

 have a surprising size and expansion. The Northaller- 

 ton vine, about the year 1785, covered a space of 137 

 square yards, and the circumference of the trunk near 

 the ground was almost four feet; it was then considerably 

 more than a hundred years old. Lysons, in his Ac- 

 count of the Environs of London, describes a Black 

 Hamburgh vine at Valentines in Essex, the branches of 

 which extended 200 feet, the stem being 1 foot IS 

 inches in circumference. It sometimes yielded 4 cwt. 

 of grapes in a season. Another Black Hamburgh vine 

 still more famous for the quantity of its produce, has 

 already been mentioned 20, as existing in a grape- 

 house at Hampton Court Palace. This season (1816) 

 it yielded about a ton of grapes. 



18. New varieties of grapes are of course only to be 

 procured by sowing the seeds. When this is intended, 

 the grapes should be left on the vine till almost in a 

 state of decay, taking care, however, if they be expo- 

 sed to the open air, to cover them from the attacks of 

 birds. The stones, in this very mature state, become 

 of a dark brown colour ; they are to be separated from 

 the pulp, and laid in a dry airy place till spring. Mr 

 Speechly, in his work first published in 1786, recom- 

 mends the bringing together of flowering branches of 

 two different kinds of grape, calculated to modify or 

 improve each other : the frontignac and other high-fla- 

 voured grapes, he observes, may add flavour to other 

 kinds ; the white sweetwater may be coupled with the 

 red frontignac, with the black Hamburgh, or with the 

 white muscat of Alexandria. He boldly augurs, that 

 the best sorts of grapes hitherto known, will at some 

 future day be esteemed only as secondary or inferior. 

 The distinguished Mr Knight supports these views, and 

 indeed has done much towards their accomplishment. 



Under the name of Variegated Chasselas Mr Knight 

 has described a new variety which sprung from a flower 

 of the white Chasselas, dusted with the pollen of the Alep- 

 po grape, which last, he remarks, readily variegates the 

 leaves and fruit of the offspring of any white grape. 

 The berries are striped and very beautiful ; with a thin 

 skin, and juicy. The leaves become variegated with 

 red and yellow in autumn. It has been found to be 

 a very hardy and productive variety, bearing well in 

 the open air. When gathered in October, and hung 

 up in bunches in rather a damp room, it keeps till 

 February or later. 



This active horticulturist has described ( Trans. Hort. 

 Soc. Lond. vol. i.) still another variety of variegated 

 grape, in which the bunches on the same plant are of 

 different colours. This too he considers as fit for the 

 open air, at least in the south of England : it is very pro- 

 ductive, though both the bunches and berries are small. 

 It contains much saccharine matter, more perhaps than 

 any grape except the verdcl/io of Madeira. Mr Knight 



therefore considers it as better calculated for the press, 

 in a cool climate, than any we now possess, and ob- 

 serves, that if it were trained to low walls in the wann- 

 er parts of England, it would afford a wine of consi- 

 derable strength. 



Several others besides Mr Knight are now engaged 

 in the raising of seedling vines ; and in all probability 

 some excellent and hardy kinds will soon be pro- 

 duced ; so that another generation may once more see 

 vineyards common in this country. The raising of new 

 vines is by no means a very tedious process. The fruit 

 of the seedling may in general be tasted in the fourth 

 year ; while a florist waits patiently for five or six years 

 before his seedling tulips shew flower, and perhaps 

 nurses his breeders as many years more before they 

 break to his mind. 



129. Vines are often propagated by layers, which, 

 when rightly managed, form good enough plants. Strong 

 healthy shoots from different sides of the stool are bent 

 down, generally in February, and gently twisted or 

 notched : this twisted part is introduced into a flower- 

 pot, filled with fresh mould, and which is sunk an inch 

 or two beneath the surface. In the course of the sum- 

 mer, plenty of roots are sent out at the doubling, and 

 in autumn the offset is separated from the parent plant. 

 In the nurseries near London this mode is much prac- 

 tised ; and both parent plant and layers may often be 

 seen bearing fruit, so that the kind can be positively 

 ascertained. Abercrombie describes the mode of form- 

 ing layers in the open ground ; but the advantage of 

 having the plants in flower-pots is evident, as a ball of 

 earth can thus be preserved to the roots. Indeed, the 

 roots of the vine are so liable to be injured in trans, 

 planting, that flower-pots should always be employed. 



Vines are likewise extensively propagated by cut- 

 tings. These are taken off at the usual time of pruning 

 in autumn or winter, and are kept till the following 

 spring, merely by sinking them nearly to the top in 

 dry earth. It was formerly considered of great advan- 

 tage to have an inch or two of old wood to each cut- 

 ting j the cutting was from a foot to fifteen inches long, 

 and a single cutting only could in this way be made 

 from a shoot. The Rev. Mr Michell, a philosophical 

 as well as practical horticulturist, first introduced the 

 use of short cuttings, about three inches and a half long, 

 and all consisting of the new wood, if properly ripened, 

 and having only one bud or eye. Plants raised in this 

 way he found to be furnished with more abundant 

 roots, to come sooner into bearing, generally in the se- 

 cond year, and to prove more fruitful, than long cut- 

 tings, with several eyes, and a portion of the old wood 

 attached. These cuttings are often planted in a nurse- 

 ry bed in the spring ; but they are much forwarded by 

 placing them, in pots, into the bark-bed of a stove. Mr 

 Michell usually planted his cuttings in the naked bark, 

 four or five inches asunder ; being short and throwing 

 out tufty roots, they are easily potted when thought ne- 

 cessary. Shoots of strong growth, it may be remarked, 

 are not good for cuttings, having too much pith. Many 

 gardeners are of opinion, that plants thus procured 

 from cuttings become better rooted, and grow more free- 

 ly, than those from layers. 



There is still another and a very speedy mode of pro- 

 pagating the vine, especially the more tender varieties, 

 which will be described when we come to speak of the 

 Vinery. 



130. In forming a border for vines, a matter of pri- 

 mary consideration is, that the roots shall not be able 

 to penetrate to a wet subsoil : to guard against this, it 



Fruit 

 Garden. 



Vine. 



