10 
FORMATION OF THE BORDER. 
the border must in general depend on your 
convenience and room: il ought to be as wide 
aa die vim- is to be high, somewhere between 
twelre and twenty-four feet, eighteen being a 
fair average for a good house. The next ob- 
ject after securing an unquestionable drainage, 
i, to lay ''ii a concrete bottom, as it were, of 
brick rubbish and lime core, beaten bard, laid 
even and smooth, with a fall towards the 
oilier front, where an open drain must be 
maintained as high as the eonerete; a dwarf 
wall should be constructed along the front, 
just as high as the earth, for the border is 
to be kept in; it is good that the roots be 
eon lined to the border. This concrete should 
leave about eighteen inches for compost next 
the house; it should slope enough towards the 
front for all water to fairly run down to the 
drain. And now for the compost in which 
the vine is to grow ; and we admit "doctors 
will differ;" writers and practitioners, to some 
extent, may declare that each of their several 
recipes for the preparation of vine borders is 
right or is the best, and perhaps the result of 
their experience may have justified their as- 
sertions to some extent. Having been in the 
habit of visiting vines, and observing the dif- 
ferent mediums in which they flourished, we 
must say they would almost justify any notion 
that has been put forward respecting what 
the roots of a vine likes. We have seen a 
vine growing in plain loam, without any pre- 
paration whatever ; the very ground the house 
was built on trenched two spits, and the bot- 
tom loosened, and then, without a morsel of 
dung, consigned to its fate ; and few vines 
equalled it in health, strength, and fruit, and 
it was the same at the end of twenty years. 
But all the rest of the advantages were natu- 
ral ; it was the south side of a hill, where the 
declivity as it approached the bottom was 
very slight, and the drainage was unexcep- 
tionable, the loam rich ; it might have done 
even better with a few bones, or we will not 
say that liquid manure, at critical periods, might 
not have swelled the berries a trifle larger; but 
being, without any trouble, as large as we ever 
saw any, we presume there was no desire for 
experiment. The roots in this case ran just 
where they pleased. We have seen other vines 
flourishing on a chalk hill, at least by the side 
of it, without even the benefit of a prepared 
border; but the cottagers had not forgotten an 
old and vulgar prejudice about* burying dead 
vermin round the roots of a vine, so that it 
bad abundance of flesh and bones to feed on; 
and there could be seen, on disturbing the sur- 
face at one of these graves, abundance of root 
and fibre firmly adhering to bones, which 
was all that remained ; and this might be men- 
tioned as a more than usually vigorous vine, 
and kept in above average good order. But 
amongst scientific growers we have seen vine 
borders made of the top six-inch spit of a pas- 
ture, including the turf, thrown together 
without even chopping them small: not a bone 
nor a spit of dung, nor any other matter was 
placed there but these turfs, for they were 
little better than turfs; and here vines grew 
well for years. But having to grow vines 
where there are no local advantages, and where 
you have got to insure success under any cir- 
cumstances, it is no use to speculate on a 
thing doing well at Blackwater because it did 
well at Brentwood ; let us then say, generally, 
that the vine fails not to flourish in the loam 
from the surface of a pasture with the turf on 
it ; that if you could mix with it about one- 
fifth of the whole of good rotten dung, it would 
do better ; brick rubbish, so that it do not ex- 
ceed a tenth of the whole, and bones broken 
into large pieces, but not bruised, about the 
the same quantity, better still. No compost 
could beat it. To bring it to quantities better 
understood, say eight barrows of pasture loam, 
two of rotten dung, one of brick rubbish, and 
one of bones; but it is essential the bones be 
in good sized pieces, and not be bruised, as 
they will hold their properties till the vines 
want it. A compost like this would grow a 
grape, under proper management, as large as 
it can be grown, and this stuff may be laid on, 
well mixed, eighteen inches thick at the back, 
and twelve in the front, gradually falling as 
it comes to the front, and filling up the space 
to the dwarf wall. It has been objected, that 
in forcing grapes there will often come a wet, 
cold, sunless season, chilling the root outside ; 
and this seems to be the only even moderately 
sound argument in favour of planting inside. 
We propose, however, to get over the difficulty 
in a much safer and far more natural 
way; we would cover the border with glass; 
none of the genial heat of the sun need be 
kept from the surface, this would be rather 
strengthened than otherwise by the glass; 
the cold chilling rains would be kept 
off, and if water were necessary it could 
be administered the temperature of the house: 
not only so, but holes to be covered or 
uncovered as would best suit the case, might 
be made, by which the temperature of the 
front glasses in bad weather might be made 
the same as that of the house itself; but as, 
'compared with planting inside, it is very 
superior, the roots will grow their natural 
way, outwards, and fill the border. When 
planted inside, they have heat it is true, and 
partial light reaches the surface; but where is 
the sun-light? the vines on the roof check 
that, if the building of the house does not. 
However, it is not our business to quarrel 
with other people's way of doing things, but 
to give our own, and, where we think it is. 
