288 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GAKDENER. 



1871 



Fig. 3. 



stances ; as for example in those States with severe- 

 ly cold winters. But more of this further on. In 

 case you have, as iu fig. 2, only an inside border, no- 

 tice at this moment that the outside mound must be 

 so wide as perfectly to exclude frost from entering the 

 house from the edges or grass sloping banks ; that 

 is, it should be over three or five feet wide, and as 

 much more as your taste demands, but not wide 

 enough to defeat drainage or dryness, as a very 

 wide outside grass plot might do. 



On the question of outside borders there are 

 many opinions. Probably the history of the grap- 

 eries will show that the germ of the idea grew out 

 of the fact that vines ripen further North when 

 trained against stone or brick walls. The wall was 

 next protected by glass, close to the vine and wall ; 

 then the glass was removed further from the wall. 

 At last the grapery took the shajje of a lean-to struc- 

 ture against the wall, a form it yet inflexibly retains 

 iu the minds of many. And all this while the bor- 

 der was considered to be next to, but separated from 

 the wall and extended some distance from it ; and 

 as the glass and vines were removed further from 

 the wall in widening the house, so the border was 

 removed further and further, being all the while 

 kept outside of the glass work. Hence the idea 

 that an outside border is absolutely necessary in 

 the estimation of some. But to American taste 

 walls are not pleasing and the climate destroys* 

 them, and thus the idea is of standard trees, and 

 bushes and open trellis, roomy out door exposure ; 

 and hence, when we find a span-roof house and inside 

 border, it suits our natural taste, as more like nature, 

 and as nearly as can be like a Southern climate artifi- 

 cially created under an untrammelled roof of glass. 

 Now, to add to this, an outside soil or border, for 

 the roots of the vine to run in, is to say the least, 

 an unnatural thing, and we would at once say so, 

 had not the amplest experience shown that the 

 original idea, namely, an outsids bai-tkr slwuld in 

 all 'possible cases be used to the complete exclusion of 

 all iaiside borders, wlienemr it can be done, even if 

 the labor and care of the entire border be greater 

 than that of an inside one. 



To see the more readily the truth of these re- 

 marks, please examine fig. 3. 



This is a lean-to, Englsh style. The vines are 

 planted outside of the house, and led through holes 



in the wall, and trained up under the glass. There 

 are lesser vines in the inside border trained up the 

 supports and the back wall of the house. Apparently 

 it is a strange anomoly to have the roots of South- 

 ern, and of some varieties, almost tropical vines, 

 exposed to the cold air and rains of the North, with 

 the further recommendation of a border, from twen- 

 ty to sixty feet wider than the house, and wholly 

 outside of the house ; which certainly is as far re- 

 moved as possible from the dry, warm soil and air 

 of their native climes. Though the certainty 

 that the roots will run to the extent of such out- 

 side border cannot be doubted, yet the propriety 

 and necessity of their doing so might be questioned 

 had not facts of late years shown the outside border 

 the best. 



So it is summing up the best practical good sense 

 of the land to say : In the extreme Northern 

 States build the walls of the grapery down to the 

 stone drainage, so as to completely cut off the pas- 

 sage of the roots outside of the house ; and enrich 

 to a higher degree the soil inside of the house, and 

 simplify this culture by supplying them all the ele- 

 ments of growth. South of this extend to some 

 degree the border outside of the house, as recom- 

 mended by English authors, and the more so as you 

 go further South, until the vine stumps and roots 

 are placed entirely outside. But it deserves to be 

 repeated that at the far North, as experience has 

 shown or will show, the vine succeeds better when 

 wholly within the house, and thus perfectly under 

 command ; an impossibility with a cold, uncontrol- 

 lable outside border. 



Gbape Harvest in France. — The vintage has 

 begun in the department of the Rhone. In the 

 vineyards of the valley of Saone the vintagers have 

 begun to gather the grapes. The ripening of the 

 fruit is perfect, and the wine will be of the first 

 quality ; but the quantity will be small, for half the 

 vines, and especially the older shoots, yield hardly 

 any product this year. In Le Gard the gathering is 

 going on with great activity. The grapes have 

 ripened this year very unequally, probabjy on ac- 

 count of the great change of temperature through 

 the summer. Where the foliage is thin the grapes 

 were schorched by the extreme heat at the end of 

 July, but on the other hand the vines crowded with 

 leaves have ripened their fruit too slowly. 



