187 
and the Method of making If hues. 
which decrease in size year after year, and which scarce- 
ly ever come to maturity. It is no longer that vigorous 
plant the annual vegetation of which covered the soil to 
a great distance. The grapes are no more that well-nou- 
rished fruit which afforded sound and saccharine ali- 
ment ; the vine becomes stunted, and its fruit, of a bad 
and weak quality, attests the languid and ruinous state 
of the soil. By what are these changes produced? By 
the want of cultivation. 
We may therefore consider the good state of the soil 
as the work of nature : all the art consists in stirring it, 
turning it up several times, and at favourable periods. 
By these means it is freed from all noxious plants, and 
it is better prepared for receiving water, and for transmit- 
ting it with more ease to the plant ; the air also can pe- 
netrate to it with more ease, and thus all those conditions 
necessary for proper vegetation are united. But when, 
on account of some particular speculations, it is necessa- 
ry to obtain wine in greater abundance, and when the 
quality may be sacrificed to this consideration, the vines 
in that case may be dunged, more shoots may be allowed 
to the stems, and all the causes which can multiply the 
grapes may be united. 
II. Of the Time most favourable for the Vintage, and l 
the Processes employed during that Period * 
Olivier de Serres observes, with great justice, that if 
the management of the vine requires great skill and in- 
telligence, it is at the period of the vintage that these 
things are necessary, to obtain in perfection and abun- 
dance the fruits which Providence thence distributes to 
us. Every body allows that the moment most favourable 
for the vintage is that when the grapes come to maturi- 
ty ; but this maturity can be known only by the union of 
the following signs : 
