8 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 5, 1859. 
Mr. Rivers, but I have not had an opportunity of seeing 
it. He describes it to me as “ a curious variety of Mus¬ 
cadine, with fruit always of a bright red ; for no sooner is 
the germ no bigger than a pin’s head, than it changes to 
red. It is as good as Royal Muscadine when fully ripe, 
and a great bearer.” 
Ciiasselas Y ibeet. —Bunches long and loose. Berries 
large and round. Skin thin and transparent, yellowish- 
white, but when highly ripened of a fine pale amber 
colour. Flesh tender, juicy, and sweet. This, in the 
form and size of the bunches and berries, resembles the 
Prolific Sweetwater ; but it is readily distinguished from 
all the Sweetwaters, to which section it belongs, by the 
bristly pubescence of its leaves, both above and beneath. 
Mr. Rivers informs me, that it ripens with him ten or 
twelve days before the Royal Muscadine ; that the vine 
is hardy and prolific, and well adapted for pot cidture. 
It may be grown in a cool vinery. 
Cinq Saous. See CEillade. 
Ciotat (Parsley-leaved; Raisin d’Autriche; Peter- 
tilien Gutedel). —Bunches medium sized, not quite so 
large as those of Royal Muscadine, shouldered and loose. 
Berries medium sized, round, uneven, with short, thin 
stalks. Skin thin, greenish-yellow or white, covered with 
bloom. Flesh tender, sweet, and with the flavour of 
Royal Muscadine, of which this variety is a mere form, 
differing in having the leaves very much cut. It ripens 
in a cooi vinery. 
Lo Cosur. See Morocco 
Corinthe Blanc. See White Corinth. 
Corinthe Noir. See Blache Corinth. 
Counichon Blanc ( Finger Grape ; White Cucumber; 
Bee d’Oiseau; Teta de Vaca). —Bunches rather small, 
round, and loose. Berries very long, sometimes an inch 
and a half, and narrow; tapering to both ends, and just 
like very large barberries. Skin thick, green, and covered 
with white bloom. Flesh firm and sweet. A late-ripen¬ 
ing and late-hanging grape of little value, and requires 
stove heat to ripen it. 
Cumberland Lodge. See JSsperione. 
Currant. See Blache Corinth. 
De Candolle. See Gromier du Cantal. 
Dutch Hambuegh ( Wilmot’s Hamburgh). —Bunches 
medium sized, compact, and rarely shouldered. Berries 
very large, roundish-oblate, uneven and hammered. Skin 
thick, very black, and covered with a thin bloom. Flesh 
pretty firm, coarse, and not so highly flavoured as the 
Black Hamburgh. It ripens in an ordinary vinery. 
Dutch Sweetwater. See White Sweetwater. 
Early Black. See Blache Cluster. 
Eably Black Muscat ( Muscat Pricoce dh A out). —Mr. 
Rivers’ description of this variety, which I have not seen, 
is — Berries btdow medium size, and round. Skin black. 
Flesh rich and juicy, with a rich Frontignan flavour. 
The vine is more robust in its habit than the August 
Muscat, and the fruit ripens against a wall. This is one 
of the seedlings of the late M. Yibert, of Angers. 
(To he continued.) 
THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
(Continued from Vol. XXI, page 398.) 
Digging, hoeing, and trenching are employed for facilitating 
the access of the air to the roots of plants, by rendering the 
texture of the soil easily permeable, and they are practices requir¬ 
ing a separate consideration. 
Very few people ever consider, in detail, the expenditure of 
a’oour required from the gardener when digging. It is a labour 
above most others, calling into exercise the muscles of the human 
frame; and how great is the amount of this exercise, may be 
estimated from the following facts :— 
In digging a square perch of ground, in spits of the usual 
dimensions (seven inches by eight inches), the spade has to be 
thrust in 700 times : and as each spadeful of earth—if the spade 
penetrates nine inches, as it ought to do—will weigh, on the 
average, fully seventeen pounds, 11,900 pounds of earth have to 
be lifted ; and the customary pay for doing this is 2R1.! 
As there are 160 perches, or rods, in an acre—in digging the 
latter measure of ground, the garden labourer has to cut out 
112,000 spadefuls of earth, weighing in the aggregate 17,000 cwt., 
or 850 tons ; and during the work he moves over a distance of 
fourteen miles. As the spade weighs between eight and nine 
pounds, he has to lift, in fact, during the work, half as much more 
weight than that above specified, or 1,278 tons. An able-bodied 
labourer can dig ten square perches a-day. 
A four-pronged fork, with the prongs twelve inches long, and 
the whole together forming a head eight inches wide, is a more 
efficient tool for digging than the common spade. It requires the 
exertion of less power; breaks up the soil more effectually ; and 
does not clog even when the soil is most wet. It is less costly 
than the spade ; and, when worn, can be rclaid at a less expense. 
The following table, being the result of the experiments of 
M. Schublcr, exhibits the comparative labour required in digging 
various soils, and the same soil in various states. Thus, if to 
penetrate with a spade, when dry, grey pure clay, requires a force 
represented by 100; then, to penetrate an arable soil in the same 
state, would require a force equal only to 33, or about one-tliird: 
so in a wet state the clay would adhere to the blade of the spade 
with a force equal to 27 lbs. the square foot; while the arable soil 
would only adhere to the same surface with the force of 6'41bs. 
Of the results he obtained, he says, when speaking of the con¬ 
sistence of soil in the moist state, and its attachment, or adhesion, 
to agricultural implements, “When land is worked in a wet state, 
we have not only to overcome the cohesiveness of the particles 
among themselves, but, at the same time, their attachment and 
adhesion also to the agricultural implements employed. If we 
wish to subject this property to a comparative trial, we may effect 
it in the following manner. We fasten large round plates, equal 
in size, made of iron and wood (as the two materials commonly 
used for agricultural implements), underneath the scale-pan of a 
balance, and put weights into the other scale until both are equally 
balanced; we now bring the plate into exact contact with a 
moistened earth lying beneath it, and put weights into the other 
scale-pan until the plate is drawn away from the earth; the 
amount of such weights corresponds to the degree of adhesion, or 
to the difficulty of working the earth in its wet state. The degree 
of this adhesion is often more considerable than would have been 
expected—an adhesion plate, of three or four square inches, re¬ 
quired upwards of two ounces of counter-weight in order to draw 
it away from the surface of garden mould: in the case of the 
heavier clays, the weight required was as much as five or six 
ounces. From the size of the plate employed in this experiment, 
it is, of course, easy to calculate the amount of adhesion for larger 
or smaller surfaces. 
The “firmness” column in this table indicates the weight 
required to force into perfectly dry specimens of the earth a 
little blunt spade “of steel,” one-thirty-sixth part of an inch in 
thickness, and one-third of an inch broad. 
In the Dry State. 
In the Wet State. 
Kinds of Faith. 
Firmness, that of 
Olay being ICO. 
Adhesion to Agricultural 
Implements, on a surface 
of one square foot; with 
Siliceous sand. 
0 
lion. 
3-8 pounds 
Wood/ 
4-3 pounds 
Calcareous sand. 
0 
4-1 
4-4 
Fine lime . 
5-0 
11*3 
15-C 
Gypsum powder . 
7-3 
10-7 
11-8 
Ilumus. 
8*7 
8-8 
0-4 
Magnesia. 
n-5 
5*8 
ty 
7-1 
>> 
Sandy clay. 
57-3 
7 9 
8-0 
Loamy clay. 
GS-8 
10-0 
11-4 
Stiff clay or brick-earth... 
83-3 
17-2 
18-9 
Grey pure clay. 
100-0 
.270 
29-2 
!) 
Garden-mould . 
7-0 
0-4 
7*5 
Arable soil. 
$30 
5-8 
0 4 
Slaty marl . 
23-0 
4-9 
yy 
5-5 
»> 
—(Journal lioyal Agricultural Society, i., 188.) 
The preceding observations and facts are applicable to hoeing— 
an operation beneficial in consequence of its loosening the soil, as 
much, or more, as by its destroying weeds. Moisture abounds 
in the atmosphere during the hottest months, and it is absorbed 
