RIVAL SYSTEMS OF VINE-CULTURE. 



45 



vines, and whicli he pruned to one eye, and left only 

 one leaf beyond the bunch. I thought the system I 

 adopted, of leaving two leaves, sufficient ; Mr Kay 

 thought otherwise, and left from four to five. Carry- 

 ing his ideas still farther, he said he believed that 

 better still would be the plan of planting only one 

 vine in a large house. This I urged him to do, and 

 in 1855 he built a span-roofed house 89 feet long, 16 

 feet wide, and 9 feet 6 inches in height to the apex. 

 In this house he planted a single black Hamburg vine 

 in March 1856, the roots all outside, and the border 

 prepared 89 feet in length by 15 broad. Beyond this 

 border are the borders of other houses, giving it scope 

 for its roots little if at all under a quarter of an acre. 

 The vine is trained with a leading stem from the centre 

 of the north-side wall up to the apex, and down to the 

 south wall, for the house runs east and west. From 

 this main stem five laterals are trained towards each 

 end of the house — one at the apex, the others equidis- 

 tant between the apex and the walls. The last time I 

 saw it in company with Mr Kay was in 1862. I saw 

 it again in 1864, when it had a full crop of excellent 

 grapes, weighing, as I have since learned, 476 lb. In 

 1865 it bore 400 lb. of grapes ; in 1866, three hundred 

 bunches, some of them weighing 5 lb. It took seven 

 years to furnish the house with bearing wood. The 

 girth of the stem where it enters the house is at this 

 date. May 1867, 14 inches. Mr Osborne, an old pupil 

 of Mr Kay s, has ably carried out his preceptor's mode 

 of managing this noble vine ; and I trust it may long 

 remain in robust health, a fitting monument to the 

 memory of one who had few equals as an enthusiastic 

 cultivator of the vine, and one who stands alone as 

 having built a large house and planted it with a single 



