APPElsDIX. 123 



first week in October. I therefore feel well assured 

 that grapes lying on a floor of slates, such as I have 

 described, will ripen from two to three weeks earlier 

 than in vineries of this description with a furrow, and 

 as early as grapes in a common cold vinery. Black 

 Hamburghs and other kinds of grapes not requiring 

 fire heat may thus be grown in any small garden at a 

 trifling expense. I am, indeed, disposed to hope that 

 the Frontignans, and nearly all but the Muscats, may 

 be ripened by this method, so intense is the heat of 

 the slated floor on a sunny day in July. 



Some persons may think that the heat would be 

 scorching, and that the leaves and grapes would alike 

 become frizzled ; but few gardeners know the extreme 

 heat a bunch of grapes can bear. I remember a lady 

 friend, who had resided some time at Smyrna, telling 

 me that one afternoon at the end of summer, when 

 .the grapes were ripening, she was sitting in her draw- 

 ing-room and admiring some large bunches of grapes 

 hanging on a vine which was growing against a wall 

 in the full sunshine. Knowing the danger of going 

 into the open air without a parasol, she rushed out, 

 cut a bunch of grapes, and returned to her seat in 

 the shady room. The bunch of grapes was so hot 

 that she was obliged to shift it from hand to hand. I 

 observed in the hot weather we had in July, 1859, one 

 or two branches of Muscat grapes, nearly touching 

 the chimney of the stove in which a fire was kept up 

 every morning, gradually turning into raisins. I felt 

 some of them when the sun was shining on them ; they 

 were not burning hot, but next to it. 



I allowed them to dry into raisins, and very fine 



