92 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



grown in France. Such being the case, the Marquis 

 of Bute's attem]3t and partial failure at Castle Coch, 

 near Cardiff, in our own day, coupled with the fact 

 that grapes now rarely ripen on south walls or shel- 

 tered gables north of London, can only point to the 

 one fact, that our climate has greatly deteriorated 

 since the time of the Romans, or, later still, since the 

 advent of the Normans. It cannot be that the hand 

 of the British cultivator has lost its cunning, as he 

 is not in the habit of turning back when he has set 

 his mind on the attainment of a certain object; 

 neither can it be that the old varieties, still in 

 existence, are less hardy than they were eighteen 



The largest vines in this countiy — including the 

 fine old Hamburgh at Hampton Court, planted in 

 1769 ; the parent of the above, planted in 1758, at 

 Valentines, in Essex, and said to be the oldest vine 

 in England; the magnificent Hamburgh at Cum- 

 berland Lodge, Windsor, which fills a house 130 

 feet in length, produces more than 1,000 pounds 

 of grapes annually, and supplies Her Majesty's 

 table during her autumnal sojourn in Scotland ; 

 the Hamburghs at Eastnor Castle and Finchley, 

 from which the finest exhibition grapes are cut by 

 the hundredweight; and the Muscat at Harewood 

 near Leeds — are. mere pigmies compared with the 



Fig. 2.— Hip-roofed Vinery. 

 A A, Border ; ■ b b, drainage ; c, ventilator ; fl, iiassage ; oo, pipes. 



hundred years ago. A good deal, however, must be 

 attributed to the fact that our forefathers' out-of-door 

 grapes had not to contend against those of such 

 superb quality as are now grown in vineries, and 

 hence, no doubt, much more care was taken to select 

 the sweetest and most luscious. 



Large Vines. — In America it is no unusual oc- 

 currence to meet with vines, Vitis labrtisca, three feet 

 in circumference, with branches 200 feet in length. 

 Evelyn, in his " Sylvia," speaks of vines of immense 

 size, the timber from which was used for columns in 

 the Temple of Juno. He also states that the great 

 doors of the Cathedral at Ravenna were in his day dis- 

 covered to have been made of vine planks, twelve feet 

 in length and fifteen inches wide. Pliny mentions a 

 vine that was 600 years old, and Strabo throws our 

 own experience into the shade by giving the measure- 

 ment of a vine as being twelve feet in circumference. 



vines of the past. But when it is borne in mind 

 that these veteran timber-trees were grown in tlie 

 open air in countries to which they were indigene;: s, 

 where the soil and climate were congenial to thi ir 

 requirements ; and that the vines of which we are so 

 justly proud are cribbed and confined under glass 

 roofs — great credit is due to the British grape- 

 grower, who aims at the quality of fruit rather than 

 the quantity of timber, and sets as much value nn 

 the size of his berries as he does on the weight of 

 the bunches. 



Large Bunches. — It must not, however, be in- 

 ferred that the Leviathans of the past did not jield 

 large bunches and enormous berries, as we read that 

 vines in the islands of the Archipelago produced 

 bimches a yard in length, weighing 30 to 40 lbs. ; 

 and travellers in Asia Minor state that they saw 

 grapes growing in the neighbourhood of Damascus, 



