DIJON. 115 



the alignment, although it would have been very difficult 

 to point out which way the alignment lay. For this 

 purpose the stocks and roots were twisted, and the 

 different plants laid across each other in every possible 

 direction. At a little further distance another man was 

 employed in rooting out a vineyard, which he said had 

 been neglected some years before, and which it had been 

 found impossible to reduce to order. The plants were 

 literally crowded to such a degree, that it was almost 

 impossible to set down the foot without treading upon 

 some of them. Before it should be again planted with 

 vines, it would, he said, be laid down for three or four 

 years with sainfoin. This is a common preparation of 

 the soil for vines in this district, and seems to be almost 

 considered equivalent to a trenching. He said that, for 

 a poor man, the gnmS, or, as it was generally called, the 

 large plants was undoubtedly the best kind of vine, the 

 quantity it yielded was so much greater than the other ; 

 and, to a poor man, the quality was not so much an 

 object, for the large proprietors and merchants would 

 never acknowledge his wine to be a fine one, and it was 

 very difficult to sell it for a high price, however good. 

 He said that, in that soil, the large plant would yield 

 eight pieces of wine on a plot of ground 78 paces by 

 (the extent of that he was working). This is little more 

 than the third of an acre, and is more than 1000 gal- 

 lons per English acre. It would require, he said, to be 

 occasionally manured. The manure gave a slight flavour 

 to the wane for the first season only, but as only a part of 

 the ground was manured each season, the bad flavour of 

 the part was not observed in the whole. The soil of this 

 vineyard effervesced very strongly with an acid. 



Friday, I6th December. — Having engaged a cabriolet 



