164 THE GRAPE, 
the grape-vine, the oft- disputed fact that these inorganie 
substances are really absorbed. Here is a plain secad 
that they are, for according to the greater or less amount 
of lime in the soil, so will this appearance be manifest. It 
is most likely, that if all plants were so situated as to be 
enabled tu take up the exact proportions of the varioua 
elementary food required by them, most of the diseases to 
which they are subject would disappear; and certain 
enough it is, that a// would be prevented, if we could con- 
trol the elements to suit the different stages of growth, 
and adapt the light and heat to all respective constitutions. 
In making choice of a piece of land for a vineyard, it 
is not always convenient to gain possession of the precise 
spot which our intelligence would covet; but if it could 
be done, and there are many opportunities where it may 
be, we should accept an elevated table-land, lying high 
aud dry upon a limestone base, and sereened from the 
damp easterly and cold north and north-west winds by a 
distant range of hills, which would protect without pro- 
ducing a confined atmosphere, and give — _ the 
most frigid blasts of a below zero tempera’ 
We may also take a more PTE view of the 
method of planting than is generally practised, and in- 
stead of fixing the plants in the position of so many hilis 
of corn, and about the same distance apart, when each 
stool requires a stake, and the bearing cane has to be 
curved over, thereby being only half supported, we would 
ecnsider the aspect that might have to be dealt with, the 
inclination towards the sun’s rays, and all such matters as 
