806 FRUIT CULTURE IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



friable soil dug out from the sides of the high hills, and of supposed 

 volcanic origin, mixed with animal and vegetable refuse. This is also 

 the time to look after the young plants of the year. 



Toward the end of August it is the rule to submit the vines to a 

 severe pruning, so as better to expose the grape to the air and the light, 

 always taking care not to bruise it. 



At the vintage season, which is generally the middle of September, 

 hundreds of families of the surrounding districts and departments, the 

 Aisue, Ardennes, and Somme, throng into the vineyards, and receive 

 as compensation for their labor from 40 to 60 cents a day. 



The harvest is made with the utmost precaution. The grape-gather- 

 ers are advised to support the fruit with the left hand, so as to prevent 

 the riper grapes from falling; not to bruise it by throwing it into the 

 basket. These small baskets are afterwards emptied into larger ones, 

 or hampers, in which the fruit is taken to the owners of the vineyard, 

 where their contents are minutely examined by men and women, who 

 pluck of all the bruised, rotten, and unripe berries and throw them 

 into a separate basket, as such fruit is a decided if not fatal injury to 

 a first-class wine. If the grapes are very ripe, wisps of straw are 

 placed in the bottoms of the hampers to prevent jolting and bruising. 



The picking ordinarily commences with daylight, and the vintagers 

 assert that the grapes gathered at sunrise always produce the lightest 

 and most limpid wine, and that by plucking the grapes when the early 

 morning sun is upon them they are believed to yield much more juice. 

 Later on in the day, too, spite of all precaution, it is impossible to pre- 

 vent some of the detached grapes from partially fermenting, which fre- 

 quently suffices to give a slight excess of color to the must, a thing to 

 be especially avoided, no matter how rich and ripe the fruit may be, in 

 a high-class sparkling wine. I desire, in passing, to call the special 

 attention of those attempting to make sparkling wines in the United 

 States to the important fact that tbe use of unsound or unripe fruit, 

 even in a small quantity, is fatal to success. 



When the harvest is over, usually about the end of October, the 

 stakes are taken up and arranged in vertical piles or horizontal heaps. 

 Then, until the bad weather, the roads or paths of the vineyard are re- 

 paired ; old vines are pulled up ; the earth is leveled, the materials 

 from the magazines (manure, etc.) are turned out; the trenches for 

 propagating the vines are constructed ; and when on approach of the 

 frost the vines can not be approached, the time is spent in making stakes 

 (props), the earth ends of which are first charred, and then soaked in a 

 solution of sulphate of copper. 



Such are the principal operations which custom and experience have 

 sanctioned in the true champagne vineyards; that is, in the hilly 

 regions of Eheims and Vertus. 



In the vines called St. Thierry, or high vines, the succession of oper- 

 ations is much the same, and the work differs but little from that al- 



