APPENDIX 155 



grapes in my ground vineries were fully ripe by the 

 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 farrow, 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 the summer, when 

 the grapes were ripening, she was sitting in her 

 drawing-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 a stove in which a fire was kept up every morning. 



