66 



EXPERIMENTS WITH VINES. 



My employers were loath to have these old vines de- 

 stroyed, and wished me to make an effort to renovate 

 them if possible. I made a careful examination of the 

 state and position of their roots, and found that none of 

 them were within a foot of the surface of the soil. It 

 was the custom to keep all the bedding plants standing 

 on the floor of this house, and the constant watering 

 and treading had made the whole surface, which had 

 not been broken up for years, as hard as asphalt. This 

 I had picked up, and removed from the house, to the 

 depth of one foot ; I then got hold of the leading roots, 

 and traced them as far as possible. When they could 

 be pursued no further without going a great depth, I 

 cut them, and coiled them round the pillars that sup- 

 ported the stems, till in this way I had raised some 

 eight or ten of the roots of each vine, not one of which, 

 as far as I traced them, had any live rootlets on them. 

 I had mats put round these bundles of roots, and kept 

 them damp for the time being. I removed six old 

 peach-trees that grew as standards in the house, the 

 vines being confined to the rafters. I took out a large 

 pit where each of these stood, and in doing so cut many 

 of the roots of the vines. I then filled the pits for the 

 peach-trees with the best turfy loam I could get, and 

 planted them, and laid six inches of the soil I had 

 prepared for the new vine-borders all over the surface 

 of the border of this house, with a considerable extra 

 allowance of good rotten dung. I then laid out all the 

 roots on this bed of new soil, making a regular set of 

 incisions with the knife right and left, about 9 inches 

 apart, along their whole length, covering them over 

 with six inches of the same compost, and giving them 

 a good watering with warm water. This was done in 

 March, just as their buds were beginning to swell. 



