94 RAISINS AND OTHER, 



work now publishing in four volumes on the Statistics of 

 the Provence of Bouches du Rhone. 



Being anxious to obtain the volume which treated 

 upon this subject, he told me that I could not purchase 

 it without the others, and that the whole work was not 

 yet complete ; but he very good-naturedly gave me his 

 own proof sheets. This work contains a detailed clas- 

 sification, and botanical description of the vines culti- 

 vated in the department of Bouches du Rhone, or 

 Provence, to the number of 74. The whole number 

 which exists is stated to be about 350, but the above are 

 all that are considered valuable for cultivation. The 

 most of the others are cultivated in gardens and nurse- 

 ries more as an object of curiosity than usefulness, of 

 the 854 varieties, 220 have been perfectly identified 

 with those bearing the same names in the collection of 

 the Luxemburg. 



In speaking of the olive, M. Negrel Ferand said, that 

 its mode of bearing is biennial ; that is, that the young 

 wood must be two years old before it bears fruit. This 

 accounts for the pruning every two years, and the 

 frequent deficiency in the crop every second year. He 

 said it was a point on which there existed much diffe- 

 rence of opinion, whether it were better to prune the 

 trees partially every year, and thus to have always a 

 quantity of bearing wood, or to prune them fully every 

 second year, and have a full crop once in two years. In 

 this part of the country the olive is subject to great 

 injuries from the severity of the weather ; a great part 

 of the trees in a whole district being occasionally cut off 

 by the frost of a single night. The roots still remain, 

 however, and are not long in sending up strong shoots, 

 but the trees in this part of the country never attain to 



