2 
ON THE SHRIVELLING OF GRAPES. 
your readers. Four black Hamburgh grape-vines were planted into 
a new border, and brought into a new house; the first year that these 
vines were allowed to bear fruit, two of them were permitted to bear 
nearly double the quantity of the other two, and the result was, that the 
two vines which bore the least quantity brought their fruit to a high 
perfection, but the fruit on the other two vines was small, and not of so 
good flavour or colour,—shrivelling also made its appearance at the 
extremities of the bunches ; and I must here state, that the vines 
which bore the great crop were not standing together, nor those which 
bore the small quantity ; but there was first a vine with a large crop, 
then one with a small ditto, the next with a large crop, and the last 
with a small ditto. Now I will leave the reader to judge for himself 
what the cause of shrivelling was in this case, and I think that he 
will say that two of the vines were allowed to bear above their strength. 
Now this disease is often seen in vines of middle age, and also in old 
vines, and of course it will be asked what the cause of it is in vines of 
these ages? To which I answer, there are more causes than one that 
will bring it on vines of this description. Sometimes it is from starva¬ 
tion, that is, the border in which the vines are growing is either natu¬ 
rally poor, or it has been exhausted by them : now, in a case like this, 
the roots are deprived of food, and of course cannot supply the crop. 
A cold saturated border will bring it on, by rotting off the young 
fibrous roots, which of course must deprive the vine of that portion of 
nourishment which is absolutely necessary to bring its fruit to maturity. 
Digging and cropping the border, if great care be not taken, will also 
contribute to the above disease; but it is brought on oftener by over¬ 
bearing the vines than it is in any other way ; for it is the nature of the 
vine to aim at bringing its fruit to maturity, and in so doing it labours 
hard under a load above its strength, which injures its vital powers, and 
throws it into a state of debility which it sometimes takes years to 
recover from. No person can do justice to a vine, unless he knows 
something of its fruit-bearing powers. I must here state another cir¬ 
cumstance, which I was an eye-witness to a few years ago. Two white 
Syrian grape-vines were growing in one house at the side of each other, 
and on these vines the disease of shrivelling had made considerable 
havoc : the gardener of course was anxious to find out the cause, and 
prevent it, if possible; and after his opinions had been given, the next 
year he tried the following experiment, which proved quite effectual. 
When the bunches were formed so as to see which w r ere the best to 
leave, they were reduced from one vine, so as to leave only a moderate 
crop on it, and the other vine was allowed to bear a large crop as usual. 
Now the grapes on the first vine were brought to maturity, but those 
