268 THE CULTUEE OF THE GKAPE. 



porated ; the borders are forked up and watered with 

 liquid manure once a year.' 



" Mr. Roberts will thus see that his fine Eshton grapes 

 are ' superseded ;' are, in fact, beaten by specimens 

 more than twice as good, and that by the use of simple, 

 inoffensive means, which, moreover, do not render a gar- 

 den more pestilent than a London churchyard, and so 

 dangerous to health, that it would be infallibly indicted, 

 if it existed within the reach of any sanatory regulations. 

 Should Mr. Eoberts remain unconvinced by these argu- 

 ments, we would, at least, endeavor to persuade him to 

 defer the use of carrion till the coming cholera shall 

 have quitted us." — Gardeners' Chronwle, 1847, p. 851. 



In the Chronicle of January 1st, 1848, page 5th, is a 

 denial of Mr. Robert Elliott, of any allusion to Mi\ Ro- 

 berts, or the vines at Raby Castle, in his article quoted 

 as from this paper, page 798, for 1847. 



" Mr. Roberts did not leave Eshton Hall till May six- 

 teenth, 1844. I went on the fifteenth of the same month, 

 and found the vines in a good growing state, with plenty 

 of grapes on them, and they still remain in good con- 

 dition. I have, on the rafters thirty-four vines and on 

 the back wall thirty, in all sixty-four vines, each of 

 which produces, yearly, twenty pounds of grapes.* My 



* I have often been asked, why I limit the crop of grapes for the vine, 

 at twenty-five pounds. English writers upon the subject speak of much 

 larger crops, we find ; and, even by your own account, the Hampton Court 

 vine ripens its two thousand bunches. This is all true, but it is no reason 

 why your vines, which have been planted only three feet apart, and are 

 allowed less than eighteen inches on each side of the main shoot for its 

 branches and fruit, should carry the crop that the Hampton Court vine 

 does, which has a great space of soil for the roots to roam in, and the 



