THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 14. 
360 
neighbour to gather in the crop, ami upon which whole l 
families labour merrily together, as much for the amusement i 
of the thing, and from good neighbourly feeling, as in con¬ 
sideration of francs and sous. Here, of course, there is no 
tight discipline observed, nor is there any absolute necessity 
for that continuous, close scrutiny into the state of the 
grapes—all of them, hard or rotten, going slap dash into the 
cuvier —which, in the case of the more precious vintages, 
forms no small check upon a general state of careless 
jollity. Every one eats as much fruit as he pleases, and 
rests when he is tired. On such occasions it is that you 
hear to the best advantage the joyous songs and choruses of 
the vintage—many of these last being very pretty bits of 
melody, generally sung by the women and girls, in shrill 
treble unison, and caught up and continued from one part 
of the field to another. 
Yet, discipline and control it as yon will, the vintage will 
ever be beautiful, picturesque, and full of association. The 
rude wains, creaking beneath the reeking tubs—the patient 
faces of the yoked oxen—the half-naked, stalwart men, who 
toil to help the cart along the ruts and furrows of the way 
—the lmndkerchief-turbaned women, their gay, red-and-blue 
dresses peeping from out the greenery of the leaves—the 
children dashing about as if the whole thing were a frolic, 
and the grey-headed old men tottering cheerfully adown the 
lines of vines, with baskets and pails of gathered grapes to 
fill the yawning tubs—the 'whole picture is at once classic, 
venerable, and picturesque, not more by association than 
actuality. 
And now, Reader, luxuriating amid the gorgeously carven 
and emblazoned fittings of a Palais Royal or Boulevard 
restorateur, Vefours, the Freres, or the Cafe de Paris; or 
perhaps ensconced in our quieter and more sober rooms— 
dim and dull after garish Paris, but ten times more ! 
comfortable in their ample sofas and carpets, into which i 
you sink as into quagmires, but with more agreeable results, 
—snugly, Reader, ensconsced in either one or the other 
locality, after the waiter has, in obedience to your summons, 
produced the carte de vins, and your eye wanders down the 
long list of tempting nectars, Spanish and Portugese, and 
better, far better, German and French—have you ever 
wondered as you read, “ St. Jullien, Leoville, Chateau la i 
Lafitte, Chateau la Rose, and Chateau Margaux, what j 
these actual vineyards, the produce of which you know so 
well—what those actual chateaux, which christen such 
glorious growths, resemble? If so, listen, and 1 will tell 
you. 
As you traverse the high road from Bordeaux to Pauillac, 
some one will probably point out to you a dozen tiny sugar- 
loaf turrets, each surmounted by a long lightning-conductor, 
rising from a group of noble trees. This is the chateau 
St. Jullien. A little on, on the right side of the way, rises, 
from the top of a tiny hill overlooking the Gironde, a new 
building, with all the old crinkum-crankum ornaments of 
the ancient fifteenth century country house. That is the 
chateau Latour. Presently you observe that the entrance to 
a wide expanse of vines, covering a series of hills and dales, 
tumbling down to the water’s edge, is marked by a sort of 
triumphal arch or . ornamented gate, adorned with a lion 
couchant, and a legend, setting forth that the vines behind 
produce the noted wine of Leoville. The chateau Lafitte | 
rises amid stately groves of oak and walnut-trees, from j 
amid the terraced walks of an Italian garden—its white ; 
spreading wings gleaming through the trees, and its round- 
roofed, slated towers rising above them. One chateau, the 
most noted of all, remains. Passing along a narrow, sandy I 
road, amid a waste of scrubby-looking bushes, you pass 
beneath the branches of a clump of noble oaks and elms, 
and perceive a great white structure glimmering garishly 
before you. Take such a country house ns you- may still 
find in your grandmothers’ samplers, decorated with a due 
allowance of doors and windows—clap before it a misplaced 
Grecian portico, whitewash the whole to a state of the most 
glaring and dazzling brightness, carefully close all outside 
shutters, painted white likewise—and you have chateau 
Margaux rising before you like a wan, ghastly spectre of a 
house, amid stately terraced gardens, and trimmed, clipped, 
and tortured trees. But, as I have already insisted, nothing, 
in any land of vines, must be judged by appearances. The 
first time I saw at a distance Johannesberg, rising from its 
grape-clustered domains, I thought it looked very much like 
a union workhouse, erected in the midst of a field of potatoes. 
—i Claret and Olivet .) 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
GARDENING. 
ROSE STOCKS AND ROSE BUDS. 
“ Can you tell me what is the best time to procure stocks 
for budding Roses? and whether there is any rule to guide 
one in the choice of buds ?—II. W.” 
[Any time in November is tlie best for procuring Rose- 
stocks. When you can see the bud at the bottom of the 
footstalk of the leaf is time for the budding. If you can 
hardly see the bud, it is too soon, and if it is so forward as 
to be on the point of breaking into leaf, it is too late .] 
FIG CULTURE.—YUCCA CULTURE. 
“ I should feel obliged by your giving me your opinion as 
to the treatment of my Figs. The last winter cut them up 
very much ; but they have recovered, indeed, from the short, 
strong shoots, and quantity of joints, I should say improved, 
inasmuch as bringing the fruit nearer to the walls. When 
should I nip the ends of the shoots, so as to throw them into 
fruiting, I mean for the next year ? What fruit I have 
promises to be very fine, and all on wood that has been 
stopped, either artificially, or by the severity of the season. 
“ I have a Yucca, with a stem, or bole, eight inches 
diameter, with two forks. These forks are grown so high 
and unfurnished, although one shoot has flowered well this 
season, that I think of cutting one fork down this season, and 
when it has grown a shoot to cut the other. I will thank 
you to say ivlien I ought to cut it, and if I run any risk of 
killing the tree by so doing. What age would you say such 
a plant was ? I must tell you that it had three prongs, one 
of which was blown off three years ago. It has thrown 
out a splendid shoot from the bole just where the fork 
springs from.— Fig.” 
[You have the very best criterion of good management in 
your “short, strong shoots, and plenty of joints.” Now, if 
all these have sufficient room to let the sun play upon every 
leaf, and all are tied down close to the wall, rest satisfied 
that the art of man can do no more for them throughout the 
whole of this month, and the “ nipping,” to cause the buds 
for the next crop to swell, will be time enough, if you begin 
with it on the bottom part of the trees on the first of Sep¬ 
tember, and finish at the top of the wall by the tenth or 
twelfth day. When we have a cold, wet June, and a dry July 
and August, the “ nipping ” might be finished by the first of 
September; but having had so much warm rain through 
the last half of July, the ground is now so moist and so 
stimulating to the roots of the succulent Fig-tree, that it 
would be extremely dangerous to stop the growth of the 
shortest spur shoot all this month. There is no operation 
against a fruit wall which is more liable to deceive than the 
stopping of Figs; for if it be done three days too soon, the 
fruit for the next year’s crop may get so forward as to be 
entirely destroyed during a hard winter, and it is more to 
save those fruit-buds than the safety of the wood that Fig- 
trees ought to be protected from frost. 
Your handsome Yucca may be from thirty-five to forty 
years old, and now you ought not to trust it to a heavy fall 
of snow, which often, and last winter particularly, falls too 
heavy on the leaves, bends them back and breaks them, which 
spoils the look of the plant for years. A covering with straw, 
or straw-rope, is the best, and should be in the form of a 
candle-extinguisher—three long poles to meet in a point a 
foot above the highest leaf, to be covered so as to throw the 
drip from the lowest leaf. It is too late now to cut off the 
second or third head; bear with it as it is till next April; 
then take it otf, by all means, and make a cutting of it. For 
this cutting, make a hole six inches deep in a light border; 
place a soft brickbat in the bottom of the hole, and put the 
bottom of the cutting on the bat, and fill in the earth, and 
make it as firm as possible round the stem, and rise it an 
inch or two in a cone round the stem, to throw off the wet 
for the first few months.] 
