46 



RIVAL SYSTEMS OF VINE-CULTUEE. 



vine to test a theory wliich some writers of the present 

 day are starting as a new one.'" 



Having tlins placed the " extension " or one-vine 

 system before my reader in the light in which I have 

 long viewed it, I will, as briefly as the subject will 

 admit of, take a review of what is said against the 

 "restrictive" or many -vine system. The opponents 

 of this latter system of vine-culture take their key- 

 note from Mr Cannell, nurseryman, AVoolwich, who, 

 when gardener at Portnall Park, Avas so unsuccessful 

 as a vine-cultivator that he has chronicled the death 

 of all the vines he then had charge of, after passing 

 through nine stages of decadence, which Mr Tillery 

 of Welbeck has compared to Shakespeare's seven ages 

 of man, and described in very good verse in the ' Not- 

 tingham Guardian' of March 15, 1867. Mr Canneirs 

 vines, we are bound to believe, died ; but I am quite 

 certain he is in error when he attributes their death 

 to the " restrictive " or one-rod system. I know many 

 very old vines that have been cultivated on the " re- 

 strictive system," and that have continued in perfect 

 health for many years. At Oakhill, near London, Mr 

 Dowding planted a number of vineries forty years ago. 

 I became acquainted with them in 1837, and for twenty 

 subsequent years Mr Davis, who succeeded Mr Dowd- 

 ing, produced the most regular and finest crop of grapes 

 in the kingdom from these same vines, yet they main- 

 tained their health, vigour, and fruitfulness. They 

 were planted one vine to each rafter, and the system 

 of pruning was the " close-cutting " one, by which only 

 one eye was left at the base of each lateral. 



* We have at this date, March 1869, learned from Mr Osborne that the 

 girth of the stem of this fine vine is now 17 inches, and that it is in excellent 

 health and vigour, promising a large crop of fruit. 



