Annual Cultivation of the Soil. 205 



moist, and of a clayey character, it separates in large 

 lumps, which soon dry, breaking up with difficulty, and 

 leaving the surface in a bad condition for a long time. 

 It is, therefore, advisable to hasten or postpone this op- 

 eration for a few days, in order to seize the favorable 

 moment when the soil, being neither too dry nor too 

 moist, will be loosened and mellowed. Experience has 

 also shown that before beginning the second plowing, 

 it is as well to wait until the late frosts are no longer to 

 be feared ; for, a vine that has been recently worked 

 freezes more easily than one around which the soil has 

 not been stirred. 



In some localities, the working of the soil in vine- 

 yards is not practiced in the manner we have just indi- 

 cated. The plants are hilled-up at the first plowing, 

 and the ground is afterward leveled at the second. As 

 the foot of the plants can perfectly withstand the colds 

 of winter, we think it better to uncover them at the 

 first plowing, in order to reap the benefits arising from 

 such a process as we have indicated above. 



[It is a very common practice in our vineyards, to give 

 them a thorough dressing very early in the season. On the 

 hill-sides, this is done with the heavy two-pronged hoe, sim- 

 ilar to the bidens of Virgil's Georgics, with which the an- 

 cient Romans probably worked their vineyards. In all grounds 

 where the plow can be used, that implement is to be pre- 

 ferred to all others. If the vines have been laid by in the 

 autumn, by throwing a fiirrow against them on both sides, the 

 first operation is like that recommended by our author, and is 

 performed by running the land-side of the plow close to the 

 vines, which removes the earth thrown there in the autumn, 

 and opens a furrow on each side that admits the warming in- 



