THE . CULTUHE OF THE GBAPE. 283 



be the correct one, and attributes it to putrefaction in the 

 border, baneful stimulants to the tender roots have arisen, 

 and the effect of such stimulants, according to this writer, 

 has been to kill the ends of the shoots. Had this suppo- 

 sition been correct, that the cause was putrid matter 

 from the flesh of animals coming in contact with the 

 roots of the vine, I have no hesitation in asserting, from 

 what experience I have had in such matters, the result 

 would have been death to the vine, — the roots dying first, 

 the tops, last. I have never known a vine affected in 

 this manner, when there was a possibility that the rich 

 soil could have been the cause ; neither do I think that, 

 out of six hundred vines which I have planted under glass, 

 this singular disease ever seriously affected one vine. I 

 have had a few injured at the end of the cane, but it has 

 always occurred on some extremely hot and bright day, 

 when the very place on the skin of the shoot, which had 

 been burned by a defect in the glass, could be seen. A 

 new shoot from the terminal eye has invariably pushed 

 and grown rapidly, showing that the cause was external, 

 and not with the roots or sap. In the bright sunshine, I 

 do not see any good reason why the glass might not burn 

 the shoots in England as well as in the United States ; 

 that it does burn here, there is no doubt ; and Mr.' Hovey, 

 in speaking of the exposure for the grapery, alludes to 

 the necessity of having some protection from the scorch- 

 ing effects of the sun in summer, and mentions the 

 whiting the glass for this purpose. It is not uncomjnon 

 to see the young laterals, and even the main stalk of the 

 bunch of fruit I have sometimes found burned, on the 

 side next the glass, and so injured that I have deemed it 



