126 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



Notches or incisions were then cut in the boles of the 

 vines, above the surface of the soil, and a little fresh loam 

 put round them. There they soon emitted strong 

 bunches of roots ; and they made a tremendous struggle 

 for life, and sent their leaders to the top of a long rafter, 

 but woefully weak compared to those at the other end 

 of the house, and the bunches were like black currants 

 comparatively. 



As time went on, galls were discovered on the under 

 sides of the leaves at the affected end of the vinery, and 

 this soon revealed the foe that had been carrying on its 

 work of destruction in ambush at the roots, and on which 

 it was found in myriads. The invader spread towards 

 the other end of the house as steadily and regularly as 

 a fire would progress ; and each vine it attacked on its 

 onward march drooped, and shed its leaves suddenly 

 and prematurely. Before it got to the extreme end of the 

 vinery, the vines there had brought to maturity a fine 

 crop of large bunches, and were showing no signs of 

 distress ; but — and this will give some idea of the 

 rapidity with which the work of destruction is effected — 

 in a month afterwards some of the vines were literally 

 dead, not having a live root, and to save the grapes they 

 had to be cut wholesale. 



In the same range, and adjoining this house, is a 

 Muscat-house, the vines in which ripened a fine crop 

 of grapes to a beautiful goldeu colour; and on two grafts 

 of Gros Guillaume there were ten bunches, weighing 

 from 6 to 8 lb. each. It was not till October that 

 the presence of the Phylloxera was suspected here, and 

 by the end of November the roots of the whole of these 

 vines were literally covered with it — so much so that, 

 looked at with the naked eye, it imparted its own 



