243 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, January 19, 1858. 
but to devote the whole space for the sole use and 
benefit of the principal leaves. A process, by-the-by, 
which is still questioned by good practicals, reasoning 
from their in-door practice ; a process, too, which few 
scientific men, who have not the nach of applying 
theory to practice, recommend. 
Others, again, who do not rightly understand the 
application of theory to practice, in the forcing of 
Vines, deny the value of the assistance of the lateral 
leaves under glass, or, indeed, under any very re¬ 
stricted mode of pruning ; and it is for the use, and, 
I hope, for the conviction and conversion of this latter 
class from their heresy, that I have taken up my pen 
to-day : but, instead of going into a scientific ramble 
on the vexed question, I shall tell the truest and the 
most practical story about it, which the whole ex¬ 
perience of the three kingdoms could furnish at the 
marriage of the Princess Royal, when Grapes will 
not, probably, be so dear as when I paid to Mr. 
| Charlwood, in February 1832 or 1833, forty-five 
shillings the pound. But my story does not go so far 
back as that; it begins on the left bank of the Orwell, 
as you go out of Ipswich, towards the Cliff, where 
• Margaret Catchpole was servant-maid long ago. But, 
perhaps, you have not read “ Margaret Catchpole,” 
and, if not, pray get it at some library; it is one of 
the best books of that class in our language, quite 
; true, every word of it, except some of the names. I 
know the author—a clergyman of the established 
church, and most of the family, with all the places 
embraced in the story, about those parts. 
Margaret Catchpole was a little servant-maid at 
j the Cliff; she saved two of her master’s sons from 
being drowned; refused to marry her first sweetheart, 
who went to Australia ; and to get her next lover, a 
smuggler, out of a scrape, she stole one of her master’s 
best horses, and the groom’s clothes, and rode up to 
London, more than seventy miles, without slackening 
her pace ; for which she was condemned to a long im¬ 
prisonment in Ipswich jail; but she scaled the highest 
prison wall I know, joined her William, and on the 
point of flying the kingdom, he was shot dead before 
her eyes on the beach. At her next trial, on being 
asked why sentence of transportation for life should 
not be passed upon her, the reasons for mercy, in her 
appeal to the Judge, are the most affecting in the 
annals of the circuits, and the most stirring in truth 
or fiction; but you must read the book, and see how 
she got on in Australia. How her good and kind 
mistress never lost sight of her in all her trials, and 
j in her prosperity. How and whom she married, and 
when and where she died. And my story goes on to 
| another maid, who once filled Margaret Catchpole’s 
“place” at the Cliff. She is now landlady at the 
“ Fountain” public house, very near the Cliff; and her 
husband is a good Grape grower — a man full six feet 
high in his stockings, and a model of a Life-guardsman. 
When I was in Suffolk, he used very often to ask my 
j advice about his Grapes, of which he used to be 
rather proud: but he came in one morning in “ such 
a plight,” as I shall never forget; I never saw a man 
“ so took to ” before or since. He was as pale as 
: death, and shook like an Aspen Poplar, wringing his 
hands in agony, and utter despair. The first idea 
which struck me was that his wife and children 
had been burnt in the night. No; but he wished he 
had been. “Oh ! what shall I do ?” and I could get no 
more out of him. At last he told me “ it was about the 
Grapes.” “ About fiddlesticks,” said I. “ Is that all 
you are making such a piece of bother about ?” “ But, 
| oh! what shall I do P Will you come over and see 
them?” I did: butl could not keep up with him,he was 
so long in the legs that I had no chance; and if he had 
| committed suicide, and I were seen running after him, 
it might look awkward; but when he opened the vinery 
door, I saw, and understood the weight of his sorrow. 
A beautiful house of Grapes, good wood, and half- 
grown bunches ; but every leaf in that house, from end 
to end, and from back to front, hung down perpen- ! 
dicularly from the rafters and rods, and looked very 
much like soft pieces of bladder, and they nearly 
of that colour. I should never have believed the sight 
unless I had seen it. I have seen all kinds of deaths, 
from tobacco, sulphur, ammoniacal liquor, hot dung! 
tan, and leaves, but nothing of these kinds of deaths 
did this destruction resemble. There was not a curl 
on the edge of a single leaf in the house; the green 
colour entirely gone; the footstalks were soft and 
pliable as the blades of the leaves ; and there was no 
appearance in the house to indicate the cause of such 
utter destruction. Nor can I explain to this day the 
reason why the leaves were as if they were out of the 
washing-tub that morning: but so they were. The 
time was early in June, and early in the day, and no 
time was to be lost. I advised that the glass and walls 
be heavily syringed inside and out, which would keep 
the house cool; to open the two doors, one at each I 
end; to flood the paths, and to darken the glass by 
some kind of covering, which was to be kept syringed I 
and wet all day, and so to be for a week or ten days, 
or till a visible change could be reported; and I asked 
for the exact process of management, or mishap, by 
which such unusual effects were brought about: and 
here it is. 
There was a bed along the centre of the house 
which was filled, in the autumn before, with mixed 
leaves and a little fresh littery dung from a stable, 
at the bottom. All this was very much stamped, or 
pressed down, at the time, and some leaf mould put 
over it to plunge pots in, and, I believe, some common 
shrubs to force for bloom ; but the heat never rose to 
the surface “ kindlyand, at the time of the accident, 
this bed was turned, or part of it, the previous day, 
and much water was thrown on the half-spent leaves, 
because they were dry and “ musty,” and also to raise | 
a gentle vapour for the benefit of the swelling Grapes; 
which was the only reason he could give for “ turn- ' 
ing” such a bed at so unusual a period. Hearing this, 
I also advised that the surface of the bed to covered 
with some sweet, fresh earth, or compost, or anything j 
to keep down the agent of destruction. The only 
redeeming point in the case was, that more than the j 
usual length of laterals was allowed on the Vines that ! 
season, and but very few of the leaves on these laterals 
were hurt or discoloured. Here, then, was a practical ! 
illustration of the doctrine that leaves do not breathe 
for a considerable time after they expand. If the leaves 
on these laterals were so ripe, as the principal leaves 
must have been, they, too, must have gone, from 
breathing the poisoned air. The fact that the laterals 
were not stopped beyond the second joint, in the usual 
way, must have retarded the ripening of the leaves, 
and thus saved a crop of Grapes. I advised that the 
laterals should not be stopped till the berries began 
to change colour; and in ten days the leaves of the 
laterals began to expand more—much more, than such 
leaves do under the ordinary treatment. The roof was 
kept shaded in the middle of the day for three weeks, 
and the crop ripened well, but was a month later than 
was first expected. Therefore, the action of the lateral 
leaves—say six leaves, on an average, to every lateral 
—was sufficient to mature a crop of Grapes after the 
whole of the principal leaves were destroyed in the i 
middle of the growing season ; and all the philosophy 
on earth could not demonstrate the value of lateral 
leaves more than this accident. 
Surely, then, the leaves on the laterals must be of 
immense assistance in ripening a crop of Grapes; 
