266 THE CULTURE OF THE GEAPE. 



plants hegiii to languish ; no longer iinding that abund- 

 ance of nourishment to which they have been accus- 

 tomed, they suffer in consequence, and often fall victims 

 to the want of it. Thus a part of the plants are lost, 

 either by too much or too little nourishment. But vines 

 can receive, and it is often advantageous to give them, 

 such manure as will make good the poverty of the soil, 

 its exhaustion, or what is required otherwise for this sort 

 of cultivation. No manure suits vines better than what 

 is properly called vegetable earth, obtained by the de- 

 composition of plants. Mosses, leaves, and turf, mixed 

 together, thrown up in great heaps, and left for about 

 two years to ferment, make the v^\'-^ best manure of this 

 sort. — (Traiti sur la Culture de la Yigne, i., 333.) 

 [Further extracts from Chaptal may be found under the 

 head of manures.] 



"We will not say that these maxims are exactly appli- 

 cable to English vine-growing ; we seeking fine bunches 

 of grapes, the French requiring juice of fine quality ; and 

 we are, therefore, ready to concede the value of manure 

 of a proper description. ]S"evertheless, although we fully 

 grant this, we are not the less of opinion, that the effect 

 of manure on vines is overrated, and we will take the 

 liberty to quote Mr. Roberts's own Eshton grapes in our 

 support. He says, ' it may be in your recollection, and 

 in that of many of your readenj, that a collection of 

 grapes was submitted by me in September, 1841, to the 

 Horticultural Society, which was the produce of young 

 vines. The borders in which they grew contained car- 

 rion, &c., as detailed in my treatise, and, tmtil Ifit\d 



