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KEEPING GRAPES AFTER THEY ARE RIPE. 



This' is a matter where care and attention can do 

 much. I have this season (1862) kept Lady Downes 

 seedling grapes hanging on the vine till May, in a house 

 where we began cutting black Hamburgs in August. 

 This house is 110 feet long, 11 feet high, and 11 feet 

 wide, and has been referred to already as having been 

 planted in 1858. It is a common lean-to house, built 

 to serve the double purpose of growing figs on the 

 back wall, a vine up each rafter and one half-way up 

 the centre of each sash, the sashes being 5 feet wide. 

 The ventilation is by an opening sash to the north on 

 the top of the wall, and the front sashes open outwards 

 in the usual way by lever and rod. The cost of this 

 house, including boiler and two rows of 4 -inch pipe 

 along the front, was under £200, and at Christmas last 

 we had four hundred bunches of Lady Downes and 

 West's St Peter s grapes hanging in it, representing a 

 commercial value little short of its original cost. 



In order that grapes may keep well, it is necessary 

 that they should be well ripened by the end of Sep- 

 tember, and not grown in a wet border; nor should 

 the internal atmosphere of the house be kept loaded 

 with moisture. What is required in grapes to keep 

 well is a firm, fleshy berry, not one full of water. The 

 bunches should have the berries well thinned out, more 

 so than in the case of grapes that are to be used 

 shortly after they are ripe. Long tapering bunches 

 keep better than broad-shouldered ones, as the berries 

 in the centres of the latter are apt to damp ofi" and 

 destroy the bunch before it is observed. As soon as 



