VINERIES. 



321 



border composed of porous materials not 

 water-logged is an apparatus of non- 

 conducting cavities, from which any heat 

 that may be gained escapes with diffi- 

 culty, and slowly : once warmed, it remains 

 so, not for a few hours, but for weeks. 

 Water, on the contrary, carries off heat 

 with such rapidity that a water-logged 

 border is always cold. Warm rain fall- 

 ing on a water-logged soil cannot sink 

 into it, but remains near the surface, and 

 speedily cools again ; but warm rain 

 falling on a thoroughly drained border 

 sinks quickly through it, parts with its 

 heat as it descends — and that heat is 

 detained in the air cavities of the soil, to 

 be very gradually parted with again. 

 We may therefore say that a thoroughly 

 drained border is advantageous to a vine, 

 not because it has less water, but because 

 it has more air and warmth." 



Than this no better reasoning can be 

 given ; and if we even extend our views 

 in the same direction, and upon a much 

 larger scale, we will readily understand 

 why not only whole farms, but also whole 

 countries, become not only more fertile, 

 producing their crops earlier, but even 

 sensibly warmed and improved in climate, 

 by thorough and complete drainage. This 

 also confirms the doctrine laid down by 

 the most enlightened improvers of the 

 land. " Drain your land well," they say, 

 " whether you have water-pools in it or 

 not ; drain, that you may not only sup- 

 ply the roots of your corn crops with air, 

 but with warmth also." 



We believe that it is now very gene- 

 rally admitted by most reflecting persons, 

 that ventilating vine borders, and indeed 

 all others, is of the greatest utility ; and 

 few new ones will now be formed without 

 this operation being attended to. The 

 process, we apprehend, most likely to 

 succeed will be to carry a drain built on 

 the sides, but leaving the top open, along 

 the front of the border, and from it to 

 lead air-drains of drain-tiles, or bricks 

 laid without mortar, and not very 

 closely placed together, across the bor- 

 der, in parallel and direct lines towards 

 the front of the house, and 3 or 4 feet 

 asunder. 



It has been proposed, and with good 

 reason, to allow some or all of these air- 

 drains to join the area in which the hot- 

 water pipes are laid, or where flues are 



VOL. I. 



used to bring them in near contact with 

 them. The heat from the flues, or hot- 

 water pipes, will so rarefy the air near 

 them that the draught through the air- 

 drains will be considerably increased. 

 Some also have proposed this as a mode 

 of admitting general ventilation to the 

 front of the house ; while others have sug- 

 gested — and in one instance to our own 

 knowledge, at Ingestrie, in Staffordshire, 

 adopted — the plan of keeping the area or 

 open drain in front filled with fermenting 

 manure, with the view of throwing in 

 heated air and fertilising gases at the 

 same time to the roots through these 

 air-drains. 



As earth is a bad conductor of heat 

 and air, we think that the air-drains 

 should be laid in a stratum of broken 

 brickbats, flints or broken stones, or the 

 bottom of the border furnished with 

 pigeon-hole walls a foot or 18 inches 

 high, and covered over with flags, and 

 these covered with broken stones or 

 brickbats, as already noticed. — (Vide 

 Malgwpi Castle vinery, page 308.) 



The admission of air at its natural 

 temperature is, we think, much better 

 than throwing in heated air from flues or 

 hot- water pipes, unless these are applied 

 only to the extent of promoting circula- 

 tion. 



To regulate the admission of air, or to 

 suspend it altogether, perhaps, in frosty 

 weather, the whole operation may be 

 stopped by covering the area or open 

 drain in front, or by stopping up the 

 mouths of the air-drains themselves. 



Chambered borders. — There is another 

 matter connected with vine borders, so 

 nearly allied to that of ventilating them 

 that we may briefly notice it here, and 

 that is, dividing the border by walls into 

 compartments, or, as it was denominated 

 by Mr Mearns — a great advocate, if not 

 the originator, of the plan — " chambering 

 them in."" This practice consisted in carry- 

 ing solid walls across the borders, so that 

 each vine might have its own separate 

 compartment to grow in. Although this 

 plan was much ridiculed at the time of 

 its proposal, still we believe that there 

 is something good in it. It keeps the 

 strong-growing kinds from robbing the 

 weaker of their just supply of food — a 

 result which frequently ensues when 

 vines are planted promiscuously in the 



2 s 



