THE GRAPE VINE. 131 



berries. Just as the berries begin to colour and ripen, 

 their stalks shrivel up, and become hard and wiry — in 

 fact, die. The ripening process is thus arrested, the 

 berries ferment, become exceedingly sour, and eventu- 

 ally drop off the shrivelled stalks, unless they are cut 

 off the bunch. Generally speaking, it is most invet- 

 erate in straggling bunches, the berries of which 

 have long slender stalks, and which betoken a de- 

 biKtated state of the vine. Grape-growers have dif- 

 fered widely as to the cause of shanking. Some have 

 attributed its presence to the vines being in cold, wet 

 borders ; others, to the borders being too dry ; others, 

 again, have blamed heavy cropping, &c. &c. Doubtless 

 all these, or any other conditions that have a tendency 

 to impair the constitution of the vine, may have some- 

 thing to do with the malady. But my own experience 

 leads me to believe that a cold, adhesive, wet border is 

 the most general producer of it ; and I agree with that 

 theory of the disease which my brother was the first 

 to propound in his 'Practical Treatise on the Vine,' 

 and from which I quote the following passage : " I will 

 describe the circumstances under which shanking is 

 most generally met with. The most frequent of these 

 is when the roots of the vine have descended into a cold 

 wet subsoil ; but it is also met with where the roots are 

 not down in the subsoil, but where they are growing 

 vigorously, towards autumn especially, in a rich, and 

 what many would term a well-made border, where they 

 receive plenty of liquid manure, where the foliage in the 

 house is fine, the wood strong, and the young roots, if 

 sought for, will be found pushing along in the rich earth 

 in September, like the points of a goose's quill. , . . 

 I must now describe what I consider took place in the 

 case on hand. The vines made great strong young roots in 



