1884.] 
THE SHANKING OF GKAPES. 
187 
Vol. 
Plate 
Page 
Raspberry Lord Beaconsfield 
1884 . 
. 602 
.. 9 
Strawberry Amateur . 
1874 . 
. 365 
.. 25 
Frogmore Late Pine.i 
fl860 . 
,1863 . 
. 168 
. 230 
.. 257 
.. 172 
King of the Earlies. 
The Captain. 
1883 . 
. 594 
.. 137 
1883 . 
. 594 
.. 137 
Tomato Currant . 
1869 . 
. 294 
.. 73 
Feejee Island . 
1869 . 
. 294 
.. 73 
Orangefield . 
1869 . 
. 294 
.. 73 
Pear-formed. 
1869 . 
. 294 
.. 73 
Treutham Early Fillbasket 
1881 . 
. 552 
.. 183 
Yellow Cherry. 
1869 . 
. 294 
.. 73 
Yellow Plum. 
1869 . 
. 294 
.. 73 
VEGETABLE. 
Onion Trebons. 
1877 . 
.. 437 
.. 37 
THE SHANKING OF GEAPES. 
S long as I can remember this has been 
a vexed question. Some who have 
held strong opinions as to its cause 
have cancelled them long ago, and 
are now undecided; and many are now aware 
that the evil may have its root from opposite 
circumstances and from causes which are not 
suspected. Wet stagnant borders are blamed, 
also dry porous ones, late unripened growth 
in autumn, overdosing with manure, sudden 
and unnatural reduction of foliage, and starva¬ 
tion—from any cause, or as adduced hy Mr. 
Eckford (p. 165). I find fault with no opinion, 
being well aware that diseases among lower 
animals and human beings have a primary 
cause which works through channels where it 
never would be suspected or believed to exist 
till the naked truth is unmistakably revealed. 
I have noted what Mr. Eckford wrote in his 
former article referred to, and sympathise very 
much with his views—namely, the having roots 
entirely under control in a limited border, 
while at the same time we know of old vines 
which did well before the writer ever saw a 
vine, and are now in good condition, with the 
roots extended far across a vegetable garden 
where trencliimj and manuring are done with 
general disregard for anything in the ground 
beyond the culture of the vegetable crops, and 
yet shanking was never known. 
I will quote the following cases, giving my 
views on the cause of shanking connected with 
each. I will go back say twenty-five years or 
more. In a garden in the West of England 
was a vinery, which might be called an “ over 
average ” house, in which good fruit had been 
produced for some time ; but one season when 
it was supposed to be at its best, the berries 
both large and ofiering to finish well, shank¬ 
ing set in and destroyed about half the crop. 
The border was examined as soon as the ripe¬ 
ness of wood would allow a little excavation, 
and it was found that the roots were in a well 
made border of healthy soil, in which drainage 
had been well placed and all apparently satis¬ 
factory, nevertheless shanking had ravaged the 
crop. The reason I assigned was that the roots 
had run through the rich porous border which 
had nourished the vines and supported good 
fruit; but their being no barriers to keep them 
in the border, they had run into the subsoil, 
which was an inert kind of clay, where they , 
were kept from the w^armth of sun, and air was 
kept out. Here, the want of food at the time 
the grapes required the largest supplies was, 
no doubt, the real evil. In this case the roots 
should have been kept back by barriers, which 
they would probably have struggled through 
during a course of years, but when they 
reached the clay they should have encountered 
brick-work in cement to keep them back 
altogether. 
I now take a vinery in another part of the 
country, East Anglia. A vine of Josling’s St. 
Albans brought through the end of the house 
from a common vegetable brake, where the 
vine roots had to take their chance ; but 
they had grown a great distance and far 
into the deep strong soil. The grapes 
coloured well, cracked little (that kind is 
very liable to crack when ripening), and 
were on the whole very fair examples, but all 
the other grapes in the house shanked to a 
bunch. It was found that the border, like 
the one first referred to, had no fault of its 
own, but the vines had got far beyond it into 
a strong wet clay in which there was nothing 
to sustain a vine. Annual dressings of manure 
to the border were simply labour thrown away, 
because the feeders were not there to receive 
the nutriment. 
We pass to another vinery in the same 
locality, where grapes were grown extensively 
and well. The roots had gone far out under 
the walk into the vegetable garden, where they 
were well tended with liquid manure, and the 
ground so cultivated that vine roots and 
vegetables had their full requirements. The 
result here was all that could be desired. 
The old border, which was narrow, had little 
attention either with manure or w’ater (bone or 
