Jean Raisin stands exposed to every enemy.
Land is too valuable to be wasted in hedges,
which, besides, would exhaust the soil, shade
the crop, and harbour weeds and vermin.
Jean, therefore, throws himself entirely on
your honesty and generosity. Paths from the
high road conduct you whithersoever you
choose to roam, whether to the naked brow of
the Côte, or far and wide amidst the
vineyards. The Burgundian is a bold, bluff,
generous fellow; his beard comes before his
discretion. If you are a well-known brigand
and thief, he will give you unmistakable
warning to keep out of his vines; but if you
have the garb and look of an honest man, you
are welcome to peep in, aye, and to taste with
moderation. "Eat, monsieur, eat!" was the
only warning or prohibition I received during
my strolls in the environs of Nuits. To be
sure, it is easy for vintagers to be liberal with
what is not exactly their own. "That's
tolerably heavy!" I said to a broad-shouldered
fellow, as he set down a basket of grapes that
would have made many a watering-place
donkey sprawl flat on the ground. "At your
service!" was his reply, with a gesture
of invitation, stalking away to fetch another.
And he was a garde-champêtre, too, whose
duty is to watch and keep marauders away
from all sorts of country produce. There is
also another noble custom here; when once
the first grape-gathering is over, the half-ripe,
unripe, and quite inferior bunches are left to
hang for a while, as vine-gleanings for the
poor to make piquette with. This year,
however, in consequence of the general failure,
Vollenay, and several other communes where
there is a considerable number of late-produced
grapes, have decided to make a second
vintage of them, as a matter of necessity
rather than of custom.

A few of the choicest and most valuable
spots are circumscribed by a wall of stone.
A walled-in vineyard is called a clos. One
of the most famous of these is the Clos
Vougeot, which suns itself on the gentlest
of slopes, half-way between Nuits and
Dijon. Like almost everything else that
is good, it was once in the grasp of the touch-
and-take-all monks, who made three separate
brewings of the grapes. The produce of the
upper portion of the Clos was never sold, but
was reserved for the abbot (barring what he
treated himself to), as presents to the crowned
heads, princes, and ministers of Catholic
Europe. The wine from the middle part,
almost equal to the first, was sold at exceedingly
high prices. The lowest part produced
a sample which, though inferior to the others,
was still very good, and always found ready
purchasers. The Clos Vougeot, with its league
or two of cellarage, has passed into the hands
of lay proprietors; otherwise, things are much
as they were. Old epicures say that the
flavour of the wine is not so good as when the
monks prepared it; perhaps it is their palates
that have undergone the change.

In Lower Burgundy, the vines are planted
on even ground (leaving the general slope
of the whole out of the question), in rows
which run up-hill and down-hill—not across,
—a yard wide, and two feet apart from stool
to stool, or thereabouts; though this varies
according to locality, like most other details
of vine culture. At Chablis, the plants are
four and a half feet from each other, whilst
the ranks are two and a half feet wide.
Some attempts are made to plant in quincunx,
which, principally in consequence of
the operation of provignement, or layering
the vines, in a few years become patterns of
irregularity, and at no time are so convenient
either for gathering or tillage. The vines
are supported by stakes about five feet long,
called echalas, sometimes paisseaux, which
are nothing more than laths of split oak-
branches, prepared by workmen known as
fendeurs de merrain, and pointed at each
end, that when one end is rotted off in the
ground, the other may be used and the stake
still remain useful. "As thin as an echalas,"
is a local saying. During winter, the laths
are collected and sheltered somewhere from
the weather, like hop-poles, to save them
from rotting. These vine-props are not stuck
perpendicularly into the ground, but are
made to slope uniformly, all leaning a little
at the same angle, according to the aspect of
the hill and the whim of the vine-dresser,
who is apt to be fanciful in this respect.
The arrangement gives great regularity to
the appearance of the vineyards about
Tonnerre and Chablis. When the stake slightly
overtops the vine, the effect, seen from below,
is like that of a field of green corn with an
enormous beard. If a vine-stem is so long
that its shoots would rise above its own
stake, it is made to trail about a couple of
inches above the surface of the ground, and
then mount that of one of its neighbours.
This plan is useful in case any of its said
near neighbours should die, as it can then be
inlaid, and so form a new plant. But to keep
home, as the gardeners say,—to cut close
back,—is the favourite practice. To shorten
the vine, they believe, improves its health.

The planting of a vineyard is an expensive
affair. It gives no return till the fourth year,
and has to be carefully cultivated all the while.
The small profit from cabbages, and other
crops, grown in the intervals of the rows is but
an inconsiderable help to cover the outlay.
The fifth year it begins to produce in good
earnest; but the wine from young vines is
inferior to that from old ones. The eighth
year, it is in its full strength and vigour.
New vineyards here are mostly planted from
rooted cuttings (chevelées), in trenches like
our celery trenches, at the proper intervals.
When the plants are established, the earth
is levelled, and they shoot forth new roots at
the new surface of the ground. On the
Côte-d'Or, in little out-of-the-way nooks, may
be seen vine-cutting nurseries, filled with little