Book I. 



CULTURE OF THE VINERY. 



555 



would be to water the plants two or three times a week with a syringe or engine, and to tie up the s^oot8, 

 as they grew, to the trellis. As in this way the enjoyments of a numerous class of men might be increased 

 at very little expense and labor, we intreat the attention of head gardeners and proprietors to the subject, 

 as calculated, like the dissemination of every other rational luxury, to be conducive to the general good. 

 Opulent, or proprietor farmers, who have extensive farmeries, and probably two or three separate straw- 

 yards (fig. 4G2. a and b), might raise all the fruits grown in first-rate gardens by the same means, and add 

 not a little even to the elegant appearance of their establishments. A pinery, for example, might be 

 formed over a large dung-pit, and the side walls, being hollow, like those of Silverlock (Horf. Trans. 

 iv. 244. and^^. 238.), or of West {Hort. Trans, iv. 220. and our Jig. 230.), would preserve the air within 

 perfectly pure, so as to admit the growth even of ornamental exotics, &c. The additional expense of 

 management to the farmer, in this case, would be chiefly the difference between keeping a half-bred 

 gardener and a common laborer. 



3042. Forcing the vine in hot-bed frames, and oilier glass cases. Knight, after de- 

 scribing his inclined hot-bed and frame, and its advantages in respect to cucumbers and 

 melons, adds, " 1 have often used, with great success, a frame and hot-bed thus foratied, 

 for forcing grapes, by placing the bed at three feet distance from the wall, to which the 

 vines were trained, and introducing their branches into the frame, through holes made at 

 the north end of it (the vines having been trained to a soutli wall), as soon as the first 

 violent heat of the bed had subsided. The white Chasselas grape, thus treated, ripens in 

 July, if the branches of the vine be introduced in the end of April ; and a most abundant 

 crop may be thus obtained ; but the necessity of pruning very closely renders the 

 branches which have been forced unproductive of fruit in the succeeding season ; and 

 others from the wall must consequently be substituted. I have always put a small 

 quantity of mould in the frame, and covered it with tiles. If an inclined plane of earth 

 be substituted for the hot-bed, and vines be trained in a frame adapted to it, the grapes 

 (the Chasselas) ripen perfectly in August ; and if small holes be made through the sides 

 of the frame, through which the young shoots of the vines can extend themselves in the 

 open air, a single plant, and a frame of moderate size, will be found to yield annually a 

 very considerable weight of grapes. For this purpose, the frames should not be more 

 than eight or ten feet long, nor more than five or six in breadth, or the young shoots 

 will not be so advantageously conducted out of them into the open air; and the depth 

 of the frame, either for the hot-bed or inclined plane of the earth, should not be less 

 than eighteen inches. The holes in the side of the frame, through wdiich the young 

 shoots are to pass, should of course be closed during the spring, and till wanted ; and if 

 the weather be cold, it will be necessary to cover the frames at night. When the grapes 

 are nearly full-grown, and begin to ripen, it will also be highly advantageous to draw off 

 the glasses during the day, in fine weather, by which means the fruit will be exposed to 

 the full influence of the sun, without the intervention of the glass, and will attain a 

 degree of perfection that it rarely acquires in the vinery or hot-house." 



3043. Mean, gardener to Sir A. Hume, has practised a mode very similar to that of Knight, for a num- 

 ber of years ; and, as such simple modes of obtaining early or well ripened grapes are within the reach of 

 every one who has a grape-vine trained against a wall or house, we shall quote his account of it. " This 

 method is particularly applicable in cases where vines are trained to walls, and do not ripen their fruit, nor 

 bear well. The frame must be high enough in the sides, to admit of the vines being trained horizontally 

 on a trellis, to keep the pendent bunches clear of the dung, and to give free room for the leaves between 

 the vine branches and the glass. The frames used at Wormleybury have either one or two lights ; the 

 latter are nine feet long and six feet wide ; the fronts of the frames are eighteen inches high, and the backs 

 are two feet high ; the trellis is fixed nine inches from the glass, which gives sulHcient space above and 

 below. The upper board at the back of the frame, being nine inches wide, lifts up or slides off, so that the 

 branches are laid in without suffering the injury they would sustain in their buds, if they were drawn 

 through holes. In tlie first or second week in April, just before the vines begin to move, you make up a 

 common dung hot-bed at a convenient distance from the wall, or from the place where the shoots of the 

 vines are ; lay your frame on the bed, with its back towards the vine, and fronting the sun, as it would 

 naturally be if placed against a south-wall : the branches must then be introduced into the frame ; these 

 you train along the trellis already mentioned, with their points directed downwards, towards the front of 

 the frame. By these means, through the heat of the dung, and that of the sun from the glass, your vines 

 produce an abundant crop ; and it is found, that the ripening of the fruit is accelerated, by laying slates or 

 tiles all over the dung. At the end of the season, those shoots which have borne their crop are cut 

 entirely away, and a fresh supply introduced of young shoots, which have been making and ripening their 

 wood on the wall ; these are treated in the same manner, the wall annually yielding a successive supply 

 of young wood to be taken into the frame." {Hort. Trans, ii. 230.) 



3044. Temporary frames and glass cases have been constructed by Lindegaard, 'Tor- 

 bron, and various gardeners, foreign as well as British, but more especially those of 

 Holland and Flanders, against walls of vines. Sometimes a temporary furnace and 

 flue is built, and at other times a dung-bed is resorted to, and very excellent crops are 

 obtained. 



3045. Ripening grapes under hand-glasses. About twenty years ago, a market- 

 gardener at Bath published a plan of ripening grapes under common hand-glasses. He 

 planted the vines in a soil composed in great part of lime rubbish ; placed a glass over 

 each plant, taking out half a pane in its summit, through which the leading shoot of the 



