THE GRAPE. 
301 
varieties grow and bear well on any strong land, but tbe essence 
of all that can be said in grape culture respecting soil is that it 
be dry and light, deep and rich. Frequent top-dressings of well 
rotted manure should be applied to vines in open borders, and 
this should every third or fourth year be alternated with a 
dressing of slaked lime. 
Propagation. The grape vine makes roots very freely, and 
is, therefore, easy of propagation. Branches of the previous or 
current year’s wood bent down any time before mid-summer, 
and covered with earth, as layers, root very freely, and make 
bearing plants in a couple of years, or very frequently indeed 
bear the next season. 
But the finer varieties of the vine are almost universally pro- 
pagated by cuttings, as that is a very simple mode, and an 
abundance of the cuttings being afforded by the annual trimming 
of the vines. 
When cuttings are to be planted in the open border, a some- 
what moist and shaded place should be chosen for this purpose. 
The cuttings should then be made of the young wood of the 
previous year’s growth, cut into lengths about a foot or eighteen 
inches long, and having three buds — one near the top, one at 
the bottom, and the third in the middle. Before planting the 
cutting pare off its lower end smoothly, close below the buds, 
and finally, plant it in mellow soil, in a slit made by the spade, 
pressing the earth firmly about it with the foot.* 
The rarer kinds of foreign grapes are usually grown by cut- 
tings of shorter length, consisting only of two buds ; and the 
most successful mode is to plant each cutting in a small pot, and 
plunge the pots in a slight hotbed, or place the cuttings at once 
in the mould of the bed itself. In either case they will make 
strong plants in the same season. 
But the most approved way of raising vine plants in pots is 
that of propagation by eyes, which we have fully explained in 
the first part of this work. This, as it retains the least portion 
of the old wood, is manifestly the nearest approach to raising a 
plant from the seed, that most perfect of all modes with respect 
to the constitution of a plant. In the case of new or rare sorts 
it offers us the means of multiplying them with the greatest 
possible rapidity. As the grape usually receives its annual 
pruning in autumn or winter, the cuttings may be reduced to 
nearly their proper length, and kept in earth, in the cellar, until 
the ensuing spring. The hardier sorts may be buried in the 
open ground. 
The foreign and the native grapes are very different in their 
* In sandy or dry soils the cuttings may be left longer, and to insure 
greater success, cover the upper end of the cutting with grafting Wax, ot 
something of he kind, to prevent evaporation. 
