Vineyard Culture, 



sphere the space between the equator and the tropic of 

 Cancer is chiefly water, which reflects the rays and does not 

 heat the air to the same extent as the sands of the desert. 



Certain data have been reached which are of great import- 

 ance. We can not depend entirely upon a given mean tem- 

 perature of the whole year, for this may be accompanied by 

 great extremes, on the one hand, from which the resultant 

 mean has been derived ; or, on the other hand, there are re- 

 gions, like some of the uplands of South America, where the 

 mean temperature is as high as that required by the grape, but 

 the heat is at no time great enough to induce the proper 

 ripening of the fruit — the change to sugar. 



The summer mean temperature, or that oi the season of 

 growth, is considered the safer criterion, and it is stated that 

 65° is the lowest at which grapes will ripen. Baussingault, 

 the distinguished French Philosopher, who has bestowed much 

 carefiil study and observation upon the influence of meteorol- 

 ogy upon vine-growing, has left us the following conclusion : 

 "in addition to a summer and an autumn sufficiently hot, it 

 is indispensable that at a given period — that which follows the 

 appearance of the seeds — there should be a month, the mean 

 temperature of which does not fall below 66. z° Fahrenheit." 



Mr. James S. Lippincott, of New Jersey, has contributed 

 some very valuable papers upon the philosophical bearing of 

 climate upon the culture of the grape. These appeared in 

 the Reports of the Agricultural Department at Washington, 

 for 1862 and 1863, and they should be carefiilly studied by 

 all who are intending to plant vineyards.] 



Soil. — Clayey, compact, impervious soils are not 

 adapted to vine culture ; the superabundance of moist- 

 ure which they contain,causes the root to rot, and the 

 stocks to languish and droop. Silico-argillaceous, and 

 rich, deep soils, do not suit the vjne any better. It will 



