EIVAL SYSTEMS OF VINE-CULTURE. 



47 



There is a vine, referred to in tliis work, at Wrotliam 

 Park, wliicli is eighty years old, and has all along 

 been cultivated on the "restrictive system," for it 

 only clothes two rafters ; yet I learn from Mr Edling- 

 ton, who now has charge of it, that it is in as full 

 health and vigour as any of the younger vines, and 

 bears equally fine fruit, and has a stem 1 foot 7 inches 

 in girth. True, the border it grows in has been once 

 renewed in the time. In regard to this old vine I 

 make the following extract from a letter from Mr 

 Edlington just to hand. He writes : " The old Ham- 

 burg produces fruit equal to the other and younger 

 vines in the same house. Last year they were truly 

 magnificent, surpassing all other grapes on the place." 



I might go on multiplying instances to prove that 

 vines neither become unfruitful nor die ofi" in nine 

 years, as Mr Cannell's did, because they are not allowed 

 to extend the area of their foliage annually, but I think 

 such unnecessary. The fact is, that the vine is a very 

 docile plant ; and if its foliage is kept free from the 

 attacks of insects — if over-cropping is avoided, and the 

 wood well ripened — if the border is made of mode- 

 rately good materials, and the drainage sufficient, — the 

 vine will continue in health and vigour for fifty years 

 under any of those systems of pruning and training 

 that are practised by gardeners of intelligence, whether 

 that be the "restrictive" and close-pruning system, or 

 the "extension" and long- spur system. 



I therefore close this chapter as I began it, by say- 

 ing that there is much truth on both sides of this 

 question. 



Where it is necessary to have circumscribed borders, 

 as is generally the case, I would plant a vine to every 

 6 -feet run of a vinery, and grow two rods from each 



