Preserving Grapes through Winter and Spring. 199 



most efficient way, two directors of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 the Rev. M. J. Berkeley and Dr. Hogg, are reported to have rather 

 emphatically condemned the system. Having, from a very early 

 age, had considerable experience of the keeping of late grapes, 

 I had no more doubt from the moment that I saw this mode of 

 preserving them well put in practice, that it would prove an 

 aid to the British gardener, and be adopted extensively in this 

 country, than I had that the hawthorn will bloom in spring. I 

 therefore took no serious notice of several small attacks upon 

 it by persons who had had no means of judging of it, and little or 

 no influence to prevent gardeners from reaping advantage by its use j 

 but when directors of the Royal Horticultural Society condemn a 

 method that is certain to prove a real improvement and useful aid 

 to the grape-grower, then it behoves me to speak. Prejudice or a 

 hasty judgment is excusable in many cases, but that the leaders of 

 this learned body should condemn a system without having given 

 it a fair trial, or causing it to be fairly tried in their gardens, seems 

 somewhat contrary to what is called the " spirit of the age." The 

 Rev. M. J. Berkeley is reported to have said that the grapes would 

 " lose their sugar;" and if I am not misinformed this opinion first 

 came from Dr. Hogg ; but it is probably not an opinion arrived at 

 from experiment in this country, being well known to the French, 

 who are also aware that pears rot after a certain period in the fruit- 

 room. Yet I presume these gentlemen would not argue against 

 storing apples and pears in consequence of the virtues these fruit 

 lose before they become spongy or decayed. The fact is that the 

 French in carrying out their experiments have kept some of their 

 grapes as long as they could for curiosity sake, if nothing else, and 

 have frequently shown them in a nice plump condition long after they 

 ripen their early grapes — just for the honour of the thing. In these 

 instances a loss of sugar was, no doubt, perceptible ; but what kind 

 of flavour would berries possess if left hanging on the vine till the 

 summer months when the Frenchmen exhibited their grapes ? 



The necessity for keeping the grapes till they lose their sugar 

 does not exist. In most of our large gardens grapes are forced 



