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field, but that practice has prone out of favour now ; and although it 

 is advisable to blend the grapes in the fermenting vats together, so 

 as to insure their several constituents getting incorporated thoroughly 

 with each other during the process of fermentation, this blending 

 can be just as easily made in the suitable proportions without the 

 different varieties of vines being grown indiscriminately together. 



The advantages of keeping the varieties separate may thus be 

 summed up : 



1 . The vines look more uniform in the field, and a more 



delicate and perhaps superior variety of vine is not thus 

 exposed to be dwarfed or choked in its growth by more 

 common and more rustic vines. 



2. Varieties more liable to specific fungoid or other pests 



can receive special attention, and the disease be thus 

 warded off or kept down. 



3. Each variety can be trained, pruned, or summer topped, 



according to the method best suited to its particular 

 habit of growth. 



4. The picking can be done in succession by taking the 



varieties as they come to maturity in their proper order. 



The best way of stocking a vineyard is by using cuttings 

 w^herever the spring and summer months are moist enough, or 

 rooted plants when there is a risk of a long spell of dry weather. 

 Seedlings are never raised for extensive planting, as they do not 

 bear a crop until the fifth or sixth year at least, and besides, like 

 most other intensely cultivated plants, vines grown from seeds 

 always show a tendency to sport and generate new varieties. 



The best cuttings are obtained from the middle portion of the 

 bearing canes of the previous season, the wood being well summered, 

 keeping for a long time, and striking root and budding readily. 

 The shorter the cutting the stronger the vine. 



Yery tender cuttings are those that grow quickest : but they 

 are also very apt to soon get dry, on account of the pithy condition 

 of the wood, and are not to be relied on in dry seasons and open-air 

 cultivation on a large scale. It often happens that the plants they 

 grow are, besides, of a weak constitution. On the other hand, 

 cuttings with hard and tough wood do not strike root so easily, and 

 show a tendency to grow more wood than fruit. Whenever, there- 

 fore, it is possible, the middle part of a cane, of well constituted 

 summered wood, should be chosen from prolific plants. 



Cuttings 10 inches to 14 inches long are the best for planting 

 in this country, arid only one of the buds should show above 

 ground and not two or three as are often left. The complete 

 covering of the cutting and of the terminal bud under some sand or 

 loose soil, delays the growth of the leaves, which are the essential 

 organs of evaporation of the plant, whilst the young roots gradually 

 take hold of the ground and supply food for the requirements of 

 the young vine. If more than one bud be too much exposed to 



