THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 269 



plan is, not to allow a vine to bear more than twenty- 

 bunches of grapes, which swell finely, and we might 

 travel a long way ere we met with vines to match those 



roof of an entire house, seventy feet long, and proportionately wide', for 

 the branches to ramble over. Again, this vine, and some others, men- 

 tioned under the head of remarkable vines, are exceptions to the general 

 bearing of tlie foreign kinds of the grape, favorably affected by some 

 peculiarity in then- location, which it is not hkely will be the case with the 

 vines in your grapery. Perhaps the difference in the amount of fruit 

 produced may not be so great as you suppose. If I am correct in the 

 length of the house for the Hampton Court vine, which produces the two 

 thousand bunches, the same length of house would contain, by my system, 

 twenty-three vines, and twenty-five pounds each vine would produce five 

 hundred and seventy-five pounds. The same cumber, of vines on the back 

 wall would produce, if well managed, certainly half this amount, or a total 

 of eight hundred and sixty-two pounds of grapes, the quality of wliiola 

 could not well be surpassed. The two thousand bunches on the Hampton 

 vine, at the time I saw thefn, would not average more than half a pound 

 each, or one thousand pounds. I have seen it stated, that this vine has 

 produced one ton of two thousand two hundred and forty pounds of 

 grapes in a season. This may be so, but of the quality of this fruit we 

 know nothing. I am endeavoring to show what a vine will do, every year, 

 if treated as directed. In saying that twenty- five pounds is all that a vine 

 should be allowed to bear, I do not wish to be understood as meaning that 

 a vine cannot, under any circumstances, occasionally produce a much larger 

 quantity ; the account I so soon give of the vine at Hampton Court bear- 

 ing such a ci-op, is proof enough that I hold no such opinion. What I 

 presume to be wanted of a vine is, a cei-tainty (as near as human -agency 

 can effect this,) of a liberal and annual crop of fruit, in quality as rich as 

 it can be grown under the circumstances of situation, &c. This, I believe, 

 can be obtained by the system recommended and adopted by myself; and 

 I can assure my readers, that they will, after a few years of experience, 

 a<Tee with me in the opinion, that twenty-five pounds of such fruit on 

 every vine, (favorably situated,) for many successive years, is not a bad 

 crop. On the back wall, or under circumstances not admitting of a full 

 crop, the judgment of the cultivator must be exercised in ascertaining what 

 is the proper°amount in these cases ; it wiU, probably, range from five to 

 fifteen pounds. 



By limiting the crop to this weight, 1 do not adhere strictly to just this 

 amount ; it would 1: s absurd to attempt it. Before thinning the berries, I 



