TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE

THE EARL OF ARRAN.

My Lord,

1 feel great pleasure in dedicating the following Treatise on the Vine to your Lordship, as the warm and generous patron of every improvement in the science of horticulture.

In endeavouring to disseminate the knowledge of an improved mode of cultivating the grape vine, and thereby to open, almost, a new source of agreeable domestic enjoyment, and of profitable recreation, I consider it an honour to receive the powerful aid of your Lordship's countenance and approbation.

In the earnest hope that Providence may be pleased to prolong for many years, the benevolent and useful life of your Lordship,

I beg to subscribe myself,

With great respect,

Your Lordship's obliged and humble servant,

THE AUTHOR.

PREFACE.

THERE is not, that I am aware of, any work extant in the English Language, that exclusively treats of the Vine, except the Treatise on the Culture of the Vine, written by Speechly in the year 1789. That work, however, though undoubtedly a valuable one, and shewing on the part of the author a thorough practical knowledge of the nature of the vine, in reference to its culture under glass, is, yet, not sufficiently full nor explicit with regard to the management of that plant, when cultivated on the open wall. Hence the principal reason of the appearance of this volume.

In compiling it, I have endeavoured in as plain and as concise a manner as the nature of the sub

ject would admit, to embody all the necessary points of culture, with the principles on which they are founded, and to arrange them, in such a manner, as to make their practical application a matter of easy attainment. I have, also, excluded every thing of a technical nature, and have, in many instances, not scrupled to use a phraseology different from that usually employed by writers on horticulture. In adopting this course, my object has been to render the work more generally useful, and es

pecially so to the more humble part of the rural population, by enabling them to avail themselves without difficulty, of the directions contained in it, and thereby the more readily to induce them to turn their attention to the cultivation of a plant, which is capable of adding to their comforts, and increasing their enjoyments, in a much greater degree than has been hitherto supposed.

The details of many operations relative to the culture of the vine, that have been heretofore inserted in works on gardening, have been excluded in the present work, for the simple, and, I trust, satisfactory reason, that the operations themselves when submitted to the test of experience, have been found, either, of uncertain issue, or of very questionable utility.

It remains only to observe, that although the routine of management recommended in the following pages, is the result of many years' diligent investigation, and of patient observation, and rests therefore on the firm basis of actual experience; I have no reason to expect, nor do I desire, indeed, that this treatise should be considered as worthy of the patronage of the public, otherwise than in proportion to the value and usefulness of the improvements it is designed to introduce in the culture of that most grateful of all fruit trees THE GRAPE VINE.

Sidlesham, near Chichester, Dec. 30th. 1834.