VINEYARD CULTURE IN FRANCE. 



55 



the object is to secure an enormous crop of grapes for the manu- 

 facture of brandy. The experience of different countries in this 

 respect, indeed, is different. Mr. Mumm, so celebrated for his 

 Eudesheimer, informed me that in many vineyards on the Rhine 

 large quantities of manure are employed ; but this practice, though 

 suitable for Germany, might be extremely prejudicial in Southern 

 France or Spain. In our own country, where it was once the 

 fashion to bury putrid animals and other abominations in the 

 ground prepared for vines, the voice of almost every experienced 

 cultivator is now raised against the disgusting practice. 



Nothing is so much deprecated in the vineyard as a soil which 

 sets hard after the first heavy rain, a point which is sometimes 

 neglected in garden practice. Something must be done to alter 

 the texture ; and where lime does not exist in the soil already, a 

 dressing of marl, or of a compost made with alternate layers of 

 quicklime and stable-manure, maybe employed with advantage, 

 while in some cases, where lime is already present, an addition of 

 sand will be sufficient. The manure must, however, be in very 

 thin layers, as a large proportion would confessedly be injurious. 

 Our author gives some directions towards the determination of 

 the chemical nature of the soil from the natural vegetation ; but 

 if the matter were of any importance to us as vine-cultivators, 

 the information would fail of its proper effect, since the plants he 

 mentions are by no means so certainly indicative of the absence 

 or presence of calcareous substances as he supposes. Marl is said 

 to be an effective remedy against a tendency to decay, from which 

 our cultivators often suffer so severely. 



Herbaceous vegetables are next recommended, either sown in 

 the vineyards and ploughed in, as lupines, rye, or tares, or col- 

 lected in marshes, as reeds mixed with Potamogeton, and buried 

 in the soil so deeply that the plough cannot reach. The reed de- 

 cays very slowly, and the effect, therefore, is only gradually pro- 

 duced, and is carried on for some years. Sometimes these and 

 other aquatic plants are cut up into a kind of chaff, and used after 

 the fashion of mulching. The truly aquatic weeds, such as Pota- 

 mogeton, contain an enormous quantity of water, and when de- 

 cayed leave a very small residuum ; but they abound in animal 

 matter, as the eggs of Mollusca and the animals themselves, and 

 in consequence are not a bad manure for general purposes, though 

 they contract so much, that, as I know from experience, they 

 hardly pay the cost of carriage. 



A practice, however, prevails in many vineyards, and one which 



