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THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 17, 1857. 
Well, between these two extremes, the close spurring 
in the hothouses in England and the not touching a 
leaf in foreign vineyards, in which, all the conditions 
required by theory are present, how many degrees or 
different practices in Vine culture exist? and which of 
these degrees, if any, ought we to aim at in the open 
air in England? These questions remain yet to be 
decided, and the one which concerns us most, the 
degree to which we should prune, is in the most 
need of it, as the returns about my Vine amply testify, 
for out of seventeen returns in writing there is only 
one which hits the mark; and out of live by word of 
mouth, before the day at Willis’s, one, a nurseryman 
who never forced a Vine, decided the right way, and four 
the contrary. But so universal is the practice of the 
hothouse in our day, that, instead of two out of twenty, 
the chances are that no more than three persons in 
three hundred would be able to predict my heaviest 
bunch. There is no one of the natural conditions 
which are required by theory that we can at all depend 
upon out of doors in England. The clause in the act 
of theory, therefore, which concerns us most is the 
sixth clause, which says that “the period of ripening in 
fruit will be accelerated by an abundant foliage, and 
retarded by a scanty foliage.” And the fifth clause is 
I the next in importance. This informs us that a Vine 
can “ only form a certain amount of secretions ” under 
certain circumstances, and out of these secretions the 
Grapes are formed this year, and also the leaves and 
young shoots of next season, until the leaves of that 
season are old enough to secrete for themselves. But this 
is as if a man received ample returns for his capital, 
i and spent the whole of them every year upon himself and 
his household: he became neither richer nor poorer. To 
be poorer he must have spent more than his “ returns,” 
and she, the Vine, more than the leaves secreted. By 
good management, however, and with a proper know¬ 
ledge of the “ circulating medium,” both the man and 
the Vine may increase in wealth without diminishing 
th6 “comforts” of self and family on the one side, or 
the size and flavour of the Grapes on the other side; 
and, as the leaves alone are capable of secreting for a 
Vine, or any other plant, the question we have to settle 
is this—What extent of leaf surface, in the absence of all 
stimulants, will secrete a sufficient store for all the re¬ 
quirements of the Vine and fruit, and leave a margin 
for future contingencies? 
When a Vine is skilfully forced the stimulants in¬ 
crease its powers fourfold at least, if not sevenfold, and 
one leaf is thus made to do the work of from four to 
seven leaves; then the secondary leaves on the laterals 
have the same power, if not more, as the principal 
leaves have out of doors. It is true, Vines under glass 
lose from twenty-five to thirty per cent, of the rays ot the 
sun, but that deficiency is more than counterbalanced 
by the uniform supply of heat and moisture, by not 
allowing the house to cool below a certain limit at night, 
and by a gradual return to a uniformly dry atmosphere as 
soon as the Grapes attain their full size. There is no 
country where the natural climate is so favourable to 
the Vine as this artificial treatment; hence the reason 
for the seeming difference between practice and theory. 
Out of doors in England we have the reverse of all 
this, and, to suit our practice to the difference and be 
successful, wo should reverse the indoor practice to a 
great extent—to a much greater than most gardeners 
believe. When the Vine breaks into leaf in the spring 
on the open wall, in the most favourable season it will 
be from three weeks to a month before the first of the 
new leaves are sufficiently ripe to secrete, or return a 
single change to the mother shoot. All is going out, as 
they would say in trade, during that time. If you stop 
the shoot an eye or two above one bunch, and let the 
next shoot go free, it makes not the smallest difference 
in the two bunches till the Vine is out of bloom. If I 
have tried this experiment once I have five hundred 
times, and never but with the same result; therefore, to 
say the least of it, the practice of stopping the shoots 
on the open wall before the Vines are out of bloom is 
injudicious, whether it be done in England, in France, 
or Italy, or anywhere else. 
The opposite practice of stopping the shoots of 
forced Vines a joint or two before the bunch has the 
same meaning and the same effect—that of enlarging 
the surface of leaves artificially, so to speak; and if it 
is asked, Why not apply the same means out of doors ? 
why not stimulate every leaf out of doors to the utmost 
extent it is possible to effect? the answer is this—To 
increase the power of leaves out of doors without being 
able to increase the “ natural conditions,” or, in other 
words, without being able to alter the character of our 
climate, would be doing more harm than good. The 
same remarks apply to the Vine border that, for the 
forced Vine, i3 made of the most enduring and most 
stimulating compost, or should be so; but that kind of 
border would ruin an outdoor Vine in a few seasons, by 
supplying to the roots three or four times more nutriment 
than the leaves or lungs could digest. In the one case 
we are able to increase the powers of the leaves enor¬ 
mously, that is, as compared with the same kind of 
leaves out of doors; and to meet the demands of that 
extra power we pride ourselves on the extra capacity of 
our Vine borders. On the other hand, we avoid rich, 
stimulating borders for all our outdoor wall fruits, having 
learned by sad experience how deceitful it is to increase 
the powers of the roots without altering the climate in 
which the leaves exist. 
Vine borders, therefore, for outdoor Vines are made, 
by those who understand the subject, just like Peach or 
Pear borders, and nothing more. The land of my Vine 
border (for it is nothing more than the common land of 
the place) was not dunged “ to any account,” according 
to Mr. Austin, my next-door neighbour, for the last six- 
and-twenty years before 1851, when I broke it up, and 
I told Mr. Austin that if I lived for the next six-and- 
twenty years it would “ fare ” the same. As far as the 
Vine roots could go it is a sandy, black soil, about 
twenty inches deep, over a perfectly level bottom, which 
is half clay and half irony sand and small stones to the 
depth of sixteen feet certain, for that is the depth of my 
well. It is twelve feet wide, and drained better than usual, 
the drains being first of large glazed pipes for sewerage, 
and on each side of them and over them a rubble 
drainage of small stones to dry the land. The drain 
which eases the Vine border is seven feet deep at that 
part, and falls rapidly to nine feet into a main sewer. 
The subsoil of the border never gets perfectly dry, and no 
water can stand in it. I added nothing to the natural 
soil except a few broken brickbats near the surface, 
and six weeks after planting the Vines, in May, 1851, I 
concreted the whole surface of the border twelve feet 
wide and fifty feet long, and so it is to this day, and will 
be as long as I live. The concrete was not very strong, 
however. It was made from the refuse lime and rubbish 
which bricklayers and plasterers leave about a new 
building, mixed with sharp gravel from the Thames, 
with a slight coat of good gravel on the top to look 
like a walk; but it was three inches deep in order to 
bear the burdens of a “back yard,” which it really is. 
Well, the back yard has sunk nearly two inches since, 
and no doubt the concrete admits a little water 
through its substance in heavy rains, but not much, as 
'there is a slope of three inches in the twelve feet, and 
the surface is as hard and smooth as any walk can be. 
i That winter of 1852 the coals here rose 16s. a ton from 
! the last June quotation, and I was “catched.” Since 
then I lay in my yearly consumption of “ best Newcastle” 
in June, when it is cheapest, and, if you believe me, I 
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