THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 263 



A free LOOSE earfh is what the jlines demand, 

 Where wind and frost have help'd the lab'rer's hand 

 And stui-dy peasants deep have stirr'd the land. 



" This was the maxim of Yirgil, and all tlieory and 

 experience prove its value. Then there are the gaseous 

 results of decomposition, whose puti'id odors render vine 

 borders, constructed on Mr. Eoberts's plan, so intolerably 

 disgusting. Can any one seriously believe that such an 

 agency is desirable ? That it is even suitable ? Certainly 

 we are not among the number. It is perfectly well 

 known that azotised manures in a state of high concen- 

 tration, are injurious or destructive to vegetable life ; as 

 is proved sufficiently by the effect of certain animal mat- 

 ter, when thrown upon grass land ; or as we have just 

 now evidence of before our eyes, in the form of a large 

 oak tree which was almost killed a few years ago, in con- 

 sequence of the contents of an old cesspool having been 

 dug into the ground about its roots. It is only when di- 

 luted that such manures acquire the high value which 

 belongs to them. But it is not alone by their direct ac- 

 tion, that they affect plants injuriously ; the putrid gases 

 which they give out, are destructive to the young stems 

 and foliage of plants, in proportion to their strength ; 

 such gases are, up to a certain point, absolute poisons, 

 although, below that point, they are nutritious. It is not 

 Tery long since, that plants, in a small greenhouse, were 

 almost destroyed in consequence of a dead hedge-hog 

 having been allowed to putrefy in it; and it appears, 

 from Mr. Eoberts's statement, that some of his young 

 vines, about thirty, are dead at the ends ; those thirty 

 being ' entirely confined to the roof vines planted out- 



