[ 24 6 J 



XLI. Account of a Method of Managing Vines, in a Com- 

 mon Grapery. By Mr. John Mearns, Corresponding 

 Member of the Society, Gardener to William Hanbury, 

 Esq. at Shobden Court, Herefordshire. 



Read, April 4th, 1820. 



The house, of which a section, as well as an elevation and 

 section of one end, is given in the annexed plate, was 

 planned by our respected President for my then worthy em- 

 ployer, the late William Hanbury, Esq. in the autumn 

 of 1805, some weeks previous to my coming into his service 

 at Shobden Court ; it is sixty feet long by fourteen feet wide, 

 and the length of the rafters, or slope of the glazed roof, is a 

 little more than sixteen feet. 



My method of managing Vines in this grapery is in some 

 respects different from any other with which I am ac- 

 quainted ; by it I have never failed, for the last eleven 

 years, to obtain the same invariably luxuriant crops, al- 

 though I have never allowed above one- third of the bunches 

 which shewed themselves, to remain on the Vine ; and each 

 succeeding crop has been as uniform as if the bunches had 

 been placed, artificially, at equal distances over the whole 

 roof. I have no doubt but, under the same treatment, the 

 Vines will continue to be equally productive for any length 

 of time. The shoots are so vigorous that their girth is, gene- 

 rally, at the end of the season, from an inch and a half to 

 an inch and three quarters. The branches, in their most 



