*, THE CULTURE OF THE GEAPE. 271 



fur grapes. Mr. Eoberts and I do not essentially differ 

 in the treatment of the vine. I agree with tlse maxims 

 laid down in his book, with one exception, viz., the car- 

 four feet apart.) would be, on. tlie rafters and back wall, twelve hundred 

 and seventy-five pounds, about one third part more than would be pro- 

 duced by my plan. Ifj as stated above, my vines are capable of producing 

 a larger crop, the berries and bunches will swell proportionably, and the 

 avera,ge will be greater, bringing the diilerence to less than one fourth part. 

 The vine trained as the Hampton Court one would cover all the glass, 

 and it would be useless to attempt to grow grapes on the back wall ; the 

 wood would not ripen sufficiently, and, in consequence, would not produce 

 fruit. If space were left for the sun to shine on the wall and to ripen the 

 wood, the crop would be lessened in proportion, on the rafter trellis. Mr. 

 Cherry (see his statement of the vines, at Eshton Hall,) limits his crop, per 

 vine, to twenty pounds on an average, back and front vines alike. His ob- 

 ject, unquestionably, is", to produce high-flavored fruit, and he is the only 

 English gardener, that I remember to have read, that speaks of so small an 

 amount, and whose practice, in this respect, makes any approach to the 

 ■ product of the vine in the most famous districts of grape culture, on the 

 continent of Europe. I have, sometimes, when a vine has been over-luxu- 

 riant, allowed it to ripen one hundred bunches, to check its excessive 

 gi-owth, and with the desired effect ; but this was with the very strong 

 growing kinds, as Verdelho and Black Portugal ; it would have been se- 

 riously injurious to most varieties. Frequently, I have been requested to 

 go and see vines loaded with fruit, and have found forty or fifty large 

 bunches on a young vine ; they were always looking well until after the 

 seeding time, and then came the shrivel and shanking, and another disease, 

 the effect of over-cropping, in which the berries have a soft, cold feeling when 

 touched, just as they do when shrivelled, but no appearance of this on the 

 stems. The fate of these grapes has always been similar, the loss of two 

 thirds or three quarters of the fruit, with scarcely a decent bunch. In 

 Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, vol. 4-, New Series, at the 277th page, 

 is an article on the grape, taken from the Gardeners' Journal, 1848, p. 182, in 

 which the writer's object was, as he states, to do justice to a Mr. Gerrie's 

 good management of the vine. As I am a disbeliever in the vines annually 

 producing forty or fifty, or, as some writers say, sixty and eighty pounds of 

 fruit, for any length of years,— and as this gentleman furnishes one of these 

 wonderful stories, and also supplies the facts contradicting his own state- 

 ments, and, at the same time, gives confirmation to my opmion expressea 

 Before' that these weights are, usually, by estmiation, and not by actual 



