390 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
consider this seriously, and to communicate with me. I could, if neces- 
sary, devote my remaining years to this in the interest of rural industry 
and comfort, and national well-being and temperance. 
All the indications are in favour of the experiment. So long as the 
probable site is higher than the neighbouring high roads, uncultivated on 
account of its poor quality, stony, heathy, sandy, &c., but exposed to the sun, 
there is a potential vineyard ; and if brambles have there an established 
home, then there is no longer a question about it, unless this high and 
dry position is wind-swept from the west or south-west. Some money 
is wanted, certainly, but it secures itself amply, though a return is not 
forthcoming the first few years. I invite replies to this proposal. 
Miller thought that only obstinate prejudice against vineyards arising 
from improper experiments made near London on unfriendly soils could 
account for the opposition to or neglect of planting them, and adds that 
" under same disadvantages neither French nor Italian vine-growing 
could succeed." 
I present my readers with a sketch of Castle Coch and its vineyard, 
which I made eight years ago. (Fig 188. ) It is over-sheltered, as well 
as too far west, and under Gulf Stream influence. 
I may add that a correspondent, thousands of miles away and located 
in a very different climate, does not relish — if I may so construe his 
questions on the subject — my recommendation of the sabbatical year. 
The more I see and hear of diseases and the results and prospects of 
different modes of culture, and the more I have occasion to compare the 
results of different vintages, the more I feel convinced that nothing has 
yet been discovered, nothing suggested, for the management of vines, 
with a view to their health and the crops to be got from them, that will 
compare for simplicity and efficiency with the sabbatical year. Not to 
be misunderstood I must add to this a thorough grasp of what I must 
still call THE problem — viz. How and When to prune. 
