REVIEW OF BOOKS. 
17 
For wine-making, or on the premises of a market-gardener, trees may 
be put in in any number, and walls covered to any extent; and for 
either the purpose or the profit, no better practice could be adopted. 
But the weekly, we may say the daily attendance and labour required 
by a long vine-wall, with the shoots trained either upright, horizontally, 
or serpentining, would be a serious drawback on the value of the crop. 
Training the leaders, stopping the laterals, pinching off tendrils, thin¬ 
ning the bunches, and regulating the foliage so as to obtain the requi¬ 
site degree of shade as well as solar influence, would be an Herculean 
task, to be performed by the enthusiasm of an amateur, perhaps, but 
could hardly be imposed as part of the daily duty of a private gardener, 
without extraordinary assistance. 
We can hardly find words to express how highly we approve of 
every practical rule laid down by Mr. H, relative to the wall-culture 
of the vine; they are all excellent, and conformable with the best 
practice of experienced men. What he has advanced concerning the 
formation of alburnum, the generation of fruit-beds, and the elabo¬ 
ration of the sap, all being invisible processes, is not, perhaps, so con¬ 
vincing. But as these are, we venture to say, borrowed ideas, (and 
from the highest authorities too,) they do not, nor should not lie at the 
author’s door and moreover, right or wrong, as they do not affect in 
any way his practical directions, the} 7- cannot be considered as any 
blemish on the face of his very excellent treatise. 
We may add in conclusion, that though the book be professedly 
written for the open air vine-grower, cottagers, and suburban house¬ 
holders, we are most certain that it will be a welcome treat even 
to every first-rate horticulturalist; for unless a practical man be 
thoroughly acquainted with the principles of vine-culture, as set forth 
in the volume, he cannot by possibility be competent to cultivate vines 
under glass. 
The book contains only 164 pages, and is divided into fifteen sections 
or chapters, viz. Introduction—Observations on the present method of 
cultivating Grape-Vines on open walls—On the Capability and Extent 
of the Fruit-bearing Powers of the Vine—On Aspect—On Soil—On 
Manure — On the Construction of Walls—On the Propagation of 
Vines—On the pruning of Vines—On the training of Vines—On the 
Management of a Vine during the first five Years of its growth—- 
Weekly calendarial Register—General autumnal Pruning—On the 
Winter Management of the Vine—A descriptive Catalogue of twelve 
sorts of Grapes most suitably adapted for Culture on the open wall. 
In this list Mr. Hoare includes the Frontignacs, the Black Prince, 
VOL. V.-NO. LV. 
D 
