166 THE CULTURE OF THE GEAPE 



"If the earth where you propose to plant a vineyard 

 is cultivated already, the best preparation for so doing ia 

 to plant, for two or three years, the soil with vegetables, 

 giving the preference to such as require the most work- 

 ing of the land in the cultivation. The labor necessary 

 in this operation, and the manures by which they are 

 made to thrive, prepares, lightens, and enriches it. The 

 dung, in general so adverse to the vine, so prejudicial to 

 the quality of the fruit, incorporated into the soil in ad- 

 vance, can have only good effects ; it has become freed 

 of the carbonic acid in excess, and the vegetable sub- 

 stances become united with the under surface of the 

 earth ; the soil, thus prepared, is suitable for the vine in 

 every age, but more particularly in its infancy." Page 

 251. 



Remarks quoted by Dr. Lindley in the controversy re- 

 lating to manures for vines : — 



" The same reasons may be used against the system of 

 the vine-growers of the north, who think it advantageous 

 to manure their vines. By this means, indeed, they ob- 

 tain larger crops, and more wine, but it is of bad quality, 

 it will not keep ; and its smell often reminds me, when 

 drank, of the disgusting substances which produced it. 

 Manure communicates to the vine too much nourishment. 

 The nutritious juice, reduced to gas, and received by the 

 mouths of the capillary roots, and by the air-vessels 

 of the leaves, penetrates and circulates in the sap-vessels, 

 forms the wood of the plant, and furnishes the substance 

 out of which the shoots, leaves, flowers, and fruit are de- 

 veloped ; the more abundant the nutritive mattei', the 

 more the diameter of the vessels distends, the more rapid 



