THE DISEASES VINES ARE SUBJECT TO. 49 



shanking is most generally met with. The most 

 frequent of these is when the roots of the vines have 

 descended into a cold wet subsoil ; but it is also 

 met with where the roots are not down in the sub- 

 soil, but where they are growing vigorously, towards 

 autumn especially, in a rich and what many would 

 term well-made border, where they receive plenty of 

 liquid manure, where the foliage in the house is fine, 

 the wood strong, and the young roots, if sought for, 

 will be found pushing along in the rich earth in 

 September, like the points of a goose-quill. I have 

 known the appearances I have now described to be 

 all present where the border was paved under the roots 

 with stone pavement, yet there was scarcely a bunch of 

 grapes in the house that had a dozen unshanked berries 

 on it. I must now describe what I consider took place 

 in the case on hand. The vines made great, strong, 

 young roots in this rich soil late in autumn ; they were 

 not short, branching, fibry roots, but soft, like the roots 

 of some bulb ; and by the time the action of the leaves 

 had ceased, these roots were anything but ripe, and they 

 all perished, during the winter rains, back to the old 

 stem-roots from which they sprang. The vines, never- 

 theless, have a given amount of stored-up sap in them, 

 though they have lost their active roots, and they are 

 pruned and started, say, the following February. While 

 this stored-up sap lasts they grow vigorously enough, 

 but a period arrives when it is exhausted ; and the new 

 comes but slowly, for the old roots that remain are just 

 beginning, through the action of the foliage, to start 

 into life a fresh set of young ones that are able as yet 

 to supply but little. This takes place when the berry 

 is passing through the stoning period of its existence 

 — always a crisis with fruit of any kind ; and the 



D 



