28 



THE GREEN-HOUSE, 



The age of the plants may be two years from the 

 eye or cutting. After planting, they should be cut 

 down to the lower edge of the lowest pane of front 

 glass, and the leading shoot trained from that point. 

 This shoot should be shortened every year at the 

 winter pruning, in order to force it to thi*ow out side- 

 shoots, which must be spurred in, that is, all cut off 

 excepting two or three buds, this being the mode of 

 bearing most suitable for grape-vines so circumstanced. 



Particular attention must be paid to the soil in 

 which the vines are planted, as unless this is of a 

 good quality, and laid perfectly dry below, all other 

 labours with this fruit-tree Avill be in vain. No tree 

 whatever is so much injured by a springy, clayey 

 subsoil as the vine : it is not sufficient, in the case of 

 such soils, to form a drain round the house, or round 

 the border, as that will not prevent the cold moisture 

 from ascending into the superstratum ; this superstra- 

 tum of good soil must be separated from the subsoil 

 by a layer of stones, brickbats, gravel, and lime rub- 

 bish, well mixed together and beaten, or rammed 

 into a compact body. On this bottom a compost of 

 loam, dung, and a little sand and lime rubbish should 

 be laid, to the thickness of two feet at least. It is 

 of much less importance what the component parts 

 of this compost are, than that the whole should be 

 laid dry. Four parts of loamy turf from any com- 

 mon or old pasture ; a fifth part of rotten dung, blood, 

 night-soil, bones, or any dung no matter how strong 

 or coarse it may be ; and a sixth part of lime rubbish 



