would have been far better, more abundant, and more remunerative to the 
growers. 
I should very much like my readers to consider this matter fairly and 
without prejudice. Whatever may be done under glass in the mana^i,^e- 
ment of Vines, I claim for them in the open every reasonable considera- 
tion. If the quality of Crrapes and the wine made from Grapes off old 
Vines is better than that from young plants, then this is a special reason 
for respecting the strength and health of the Vine. I also submit that 
strong manures, or those of a suddenly quick and stimulating action, like 
blood, should be forbidden. It should always be remembered that the 
best wines grow in poor soil, calcareous, chalky, gravelly, slaty schist, &c. 
If it be true, as Clement Hoare says, that the Vine outlives every other 
" tree," surely that is a natural instruction to us how to treat it. If, as 
it advances in age, a large part of its roots rise towards the surface, 
should not the spade and the plough be rigorously excluded from their 
neighbourhood, and only the hoe and the fork admitted ? 
There is also a serious objection to the use of chemical applications 
to cure diseases, which are to at least some extent the result of a greedy 
system of cultivation. It was not greedy for the viticulturist to take all 
that Nature provided so richly in 1893, but he ought to have guessed (if 
he did not know) that then his Vines needed rest. Only seven years had 
passed since the disappearance of mildew in an epidemic form, and the 
renovation of the vineyards by grafting French varieties on American 
roots had almost entirely got rid of the damage done by the Phylloxera 
vestatrix. An enormous increase took place in the quantity of wine 
grown — 50 per cent, did not cover the increase in the production of some 
of the best known claret vineyards. Commercially the mildew years did 
very serious harm to the claret trade. If 1886 had been eliminated, it 
would have been better for everybody concerned. If it had been a " Sab- 
batical " year, then 1887 would have had the immense advantage of 
being not only a very good, but also a very abundant year — cheaper no 
doubt, but far more profitable. 
It may here be usefully remarked that the application, not of one— 
for that seldom succeeds — but of repeated washings of the bouillie 
Bordelaise is risky, as was shown in one of Messrs. W. & A. Gilbey's 
circulars. A vineyard in the Medoc was named by them, in which the 
effect of counteracting the mildew in this way had an undesired and 
untoward effect. The Vines were so stimulated by these dressings that 
they made an unhealthy and precocious autumnal growth, did not shed 
their leaves as usual, but were caught and, to a very serious extent, 
destroyed by severe frost in November. 
The mention of this circumstance brings me naturally to the question 
of when Vines should be pruned. Unhesitatingly I say prune in October. 
Along with the question of how to prune, which I shall go into 
separately, it is primarily a consideration of what is best for the plant 
both presently and in the long run. The grow^th of a healthy Vine is so 
great that it both invites and demands suitable management and control, 
and we must adopt the plan that wdll best preserve its health and 
strength — in other words, its fruit-bearing powers. Autumn pruiiing 
causes the least shock to its system and the least loss of sap — which we 
G 2 
