THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, August 14, 1860. 
circumstance, said it was a bug different to what is here called 
the “ bed bug.” In Kollar’s work, the only one I have to refer 
to, I find only the one sort. Can any of your entomological 
readers say whether there are tw o distinct kinds ? 
While writing, I have a word for Mr. Pownall, as to Lemon 
Kidneys (see page 272). I have tried all the early sorts and find 
this the earliest. Here it certainly beats the Ashleaf\ which came 
in a week later than the Lemon Kidney this spring. This latter 
was planted out April 3rd, and first dish gathered June 13th, 
about ten days later than in ordinary seasons. Karly Hands- 
worth, planted at the same time, came in with the Ashleaf. I 
do not think the Lemon so good as the Ashleaf to eat new ; but, 
when ripe, it is a first-rate mealy Potato, and the crop treble that 
of the Ashleaf. —A. R., Bromley. 
VARIETIES. 
Vines op the Feench Vineyards. —The original starting- 
point of the Vine seems to have been in that mysterious, undis¬ 
covered Eden or Meru, hidden in the East, which was the 
cradle of so much belonging to humanity. The Indian Dionysos 
brought it into Greece, and Rome was nowise backward in 
adopting her elder rival’s gift. From Rome—some say from 
Phoenicia—the Vine was transplanted into France by way of 
Marseilles, and took firm root in what proved to be a most con¬ 
genial soil; so firm, indeed, that in a very short time French 
wines were exported to Rome, whereat the more educated of the 
Latin deipnosophists turned up their noses and expressed due 
abhorrence. For at this early time in his industrial history, the 
Gallic Vine-grower had not made his system or built up his 
theory as now; consequently the wine-vat suffered—and the 
consumer. We should say that the modern South African wines 
are about our nearest approach to those early vintages of the 
Roman Gauls; and what they are needs no exposition. Taste 
them. In a.d. 92, Domitian, in one of those mad freaks common 
to the crazy Cresars, ordered that all the vineyards in Spain, 
Gaul, and Britain, should be dug up and destroyed. There was 
some old Roman idea of protection to ale and mead in this 
decree, which was based on the pretence that “ corn tillage was 
neglected ;” and it was not until nearly two hundred years after 
—namely in 282, that, by an order of Probus, the vineyards 
were suffered to be replanted. In 1567 there was another raid 
in France against them. The old Vines were dug up, and new 
ones were forbidden to be planted. In 1627 the same ordonnance 
was again passed. In 1725 certain provinces were forbidden to 
cultivate wine-producing Grapes at all; and, “in 1730, a royal 
order was issued that no new Vines should be planted without a 
formal permission, and, if that were obtained, a certain number 
of white Mulberry trees were to be planted in return, with a 
view to the silk manufacture, at least in relation to the Bor¬ 
delais.” It was not until the revolution of 1789 came to sweep 
away these and other cognate tyrannies, that the cultivation of 
the Vine was left free to follow the impartial laws of supply and 
demand. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Crusaders 
brought with them the rich Muscat Vines of Corinth, Cyprus, 
and other places. These Vines were first planted at the foot 
of the Pyrenees, and were the progenitors of the sweet and 
luscious Frontignan, Lunel, and Rivesaltes wines, which come 
almost into the category of liqueurs. We can imagine with what 
gusto the first glass of rich, soft, perfumed Frontignac was 
drunk by the joyous old abbots and monks who had grown 
wrinkled and grey in the service of the thin, half-sour, bodiless 
wines of Bordeaux and the rest. It must have been like a reve¬ 
lation to them. Those successive importations increased the 
number of varieties to an almost incredible extent; but no one 
thought of distinguishing or arranging them until 1771, when 
the Abbe Rozier began the task. Various workers succeeded 
him, until, in 1843, M. Bouehereau's collection of actual plants 
reached the number of 1050 ; the catalogue of the Luxembourg 
collection in 1844 mounting up to 2000. Some of the varieties 
are very interesting, the range being wide and the intervals 
distant. There is the Karly Blaclc Morillon, one species of 
which is said to bear three crops, though in reality not bearing 
more than one, as a general rule; but in the Department of the 
Seine and Marne there is a Vine called Trfera, and known to 
Pliny, which does really bear three crops,—the first ripening 
between the 15th and 20th of August; the second between the 
end of September and the beginning of October; and the third 
crop, which is generally short in quantity, between the end of 
October and the beginning of November, if the frosts have not 
set in before. To produce these three crops, the Vine must be 
planted to face the south, and be trained in espaliers. It is a 
native of Ohio, and was brought into France by way of Calabria 
and the island of Ischia. The Magdalen Morillon bears two 
crops in the year, and has been even known to llower a fourth 
time. The Me4nier, or Miller Vine with white, dirty, downy 
leaves, is also a precocious bearer, ripening at the same time as 
the Magdalen; while, on the other hand, the Bourguignon Noir, 
or Black Burgundy, “ the parent of the best French wines,” 
bears well but once in two years, has only a small crop at the 
best, but stands the spring frosts well, and will live for a century 
without any decline in its strength, vigour, or productive powers. 
The Bourguignon Noir has white cottony leaves, and small, 
black, oval fruit; it is of mediocre value for the table, but, as we 
have seen, is invaluable in the wine-vat. The Raisin Perle, or 
Pearl Grape, is another good variety, with fruit of a pale green 
colour, pearl-shaped, exceedingly rich in saccharine juice, and 
slightly muscadine in flavour. The Morillon Blanc is also a 
good “ white ” Grape, with a mild sugary pulp, ripening easily, 
making an excellent dinner wine, ami keeping fresh long, both 
in fruit and in wine. Then we come to the Muscat, or Musca¬ 
dine Grape, with its white, red, and violet-coloured fruit, giving 
the luscious wines of the eastern Pyrenees, and of the Depart¬ 
ment of the Herault. These are also the most precious table 
Grapes, having all that is required of the ideal Grape flavour, 
odour, form, colour—-all that the Greek imaged when he sculp¬ 
tured the youthful Dionysos, and crowned him and his favourite 
Ampelos with Grapes and Vine-leaves. The Muscat of Alex¬ 
andria has never more than one pip, sometimes none at all—a 
peculiarity shared by the Corinth Grapes. The Aignan, a small 
Grape, but very full of sugar, is used to mix with the Muscat 
wines, in the proportion of one to ten. Another favourite of the 
vineyard, perhaps second only to the Muscat; is tlm firm and 
beautiful Chasselas, with its pale green globes melting into amber 
in the sun, and cool and juicy in the mouth as a Water Melon. 
And there is the Corintlie, small, straw colour, seedless, and 
with a stalk so tender and delicious, it may be eaten with the 
fruit; but when of the violet kind, subject to the premature loss 
of its little, round clusters, which drop off before their time. 
The Aleppo Grape is one of the Crusaders’ importation, and is 
frequently parti-coloured, some on the same cluster being white 
and others black; indeed, very often the same Grape showing 
half a Moorish face and half a Saxon from behind its yellow- 
gold and crimson leaves. This Aleppo Grape has the generally 
benevolent quality of strengthening and improving all other 
wines with which it is mingled; being, in fact, a kind of good 
fairy in the wine-vault. The Scyras, or Ciras, brought from 
Persia by a hermit who built his cell on a hill near Tain, on the 
Rhone, makes the ordinary red Hermitage. From the Folle 
Blanche, of the Charente, comes the wine which yields the 
Cognac brandies; from the Carbenet, or Carmenet dpetite graine, 
or Petite- Yidure, comes the Medoc wines ; the Pineau Noir gives 
the best Burgundy, specially the finest Clos Vougeot; the 
Pineau Blanc is grown in Champagne ; Roussillon comes from 
tile Metaro Grape, the Carignane, and the Black Grenaehe ,— 
the best kind making the famous Masdeu ; and the Blanquettc 
gives a strong white wine, which passes under a variety of names. 
—( Athenaeum. From Reding's “ Vines and Vineyards in France.") 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Various {Allan Cameron).—Disbudding is rubbing off a burl where you 
do not wish a shoot to grow 7 ; pinching is taking oft' the point of a shoot 
either to make it produce laterals or fruitful buds ; if a shoot is cut away 
it should be done close to the branch ; spurs are either shoots that are 
short naturally, or rendered so by stopping or pinching', which are synony¬ 
mous terms. As to Melon culture, it would take a page to answer your 
queries justly; and the other inquiries could only he answered after in¬ 
specting the trees. Moreover, we cannot answer so many questions to 
any one correspondent at a time. Buy our “ Garden Manual,” and there, 
for Is. 6 d., you will find a book of ready reference, when you are in doubt 
in the departments of gardening on which it treats. 
Anemone vitipoi.ia and Dryas Drummondi (V. TV. IS.).— Both are 
quite hardy in all parts of the kingdom. The Anemone vitifolia requires 
soil as good as that for producing Broccoli; and Dryas Drummondi, the 
purest and most hungry-looking, sandy peat high up on rockwork; but it 
will do in front of and in the shelter and shade of Ithododendrons on the 
flat ground, if the place is not too wet. Tris and the Dryas octopctala 
are mere botanical gems, recollect, and both are very touchy. Just tell us, 
after Anemone vitifolia blooms with you, if you think the hybrida of 
Lindley and Gordon is really a cross between it and Anemone Japonica. 
M. Appert on Preserving Fruits ( S. TV. and C. P. D.).— It is a French 
work published some years since, and may be obtained through any of 
the foreign booksellers in London. 
Trollope’s Victoria Strawberry (F . <?.).— This Strawberry was raised 
at Limpley Stoke, near Bath, by Mr. James Trollope, the same person who 
raised Princess Alice Maude. 
Name of Insect (JE. B. Bonghlon).—The excrescences on the twig of 
