VITIS VINIFERA. 
237 
and after the conquest the Bishop of Ely appears to have received 
three or four tuns of wine annually as tythes from the produce of 
vineyards in his diocese ; indeed, so famous was this part of England 
for its vines, that in the earlier period of our history the Isle of Ely 
was called by the Normans the Isle of Vines. A plot of ground in 
London, which now forms East Smithfield and some of the adjoin- 
ing streets, was withheld from the religious houses within Aldgateby 
four successive constables of the Tower, in the reigns of Rufus, 
Henry, and Stephen, and converted by them into vineyards for 
their own emolument. • The County of Gloucester is particularly 
recommended by Malmesbury, in the twelfth century, as excelling the 
rest of the kingdom in the number and quality of its vineyards ; and 
we find frequent mention of a tythe of wine being taken in Kent, 
Surry, and other counties. At the present day grapes can scarcely 
be considered an article of cultivation in England. Although the 
vine is usually found in the green-houses of the wealthy, to supply 
the luxuries of the table, its general cultivation for the purposes of 
wine no longer exists ; the climate appearing no longer congenial 
to the growth or ripening of this delicious fruit. The vines which are 
now raised in the open air produce a fruit, not only poor in quality iu 
the most favourable seasons, but requiring more than the present 
average degree of summer heat to bring them to any kind of matu- 
rity. This fact, among others, has induced many to think that the 
climate of this country has undergone a progressive diminution of 
temperature. The vine may at present be considered a native of 
most of the temperate climates of the four quarters of the globe, 
and Asia, Africa, America, and Europe, all produce their wines: the 
last, however, far exceeding the other three in quantity, quality, 
and variety. 
The vine has a slender, twisted, climbing stem, covered with a 
rough dark brown fibrous bark, and sends off numerous long slender 
climbing branches ; the leaves are generally three-lobed, sinuated, 
deeply serrated, and stand alternately on long footstalks ; the 
flowers small, produced in spikes, and are attended by spinal 
tendrils, which cling very tenaciously to other bodies ; the calyx is 
very minute, and is divided into five small narrow segments ; the 
petals are five, small, oblong, of a greenish-white, adherent at theur 
apices, withered in their appearance, and soon fall off like a little cap 
from the anthers, which then shed their pollen ; the filaments are 
tapering, and furnished with simple anthers ; the germen is egg- 
shaped, without any style, but supplied with a cylindrical stigma ; 
the fruit is a succulent, globular berry, one-celled, sometimes con- 
VOL. II, 2 L 
