vines thickly planted together, which are
intended to be transferred to other ground
next year, or the year after, to supply our
sons and grandsons with a cheerful glass to
drink to the memory of the present
generation. Many Lower Burgundians prefer
planting a new vineyard with unrooted
cuttings, the technical word for which is
chapons. A few of these are sure to fail.
Those that succeed, thrive all the better for
having escaped transplantation, and the
vacancies are filled up the following season
with chevelées. The chapons, cut from
healthy young vines of the required sort, are
about eighteen inches long. They are cut off
about Christmas, and the sooner they are got
into the ground afterwards, the better. The
plant, too, succeeds better if buried in the
fresh-dug earth as soon as the trench is
opened. On this account circumstances are
less favourable when the cuttings to be
planted have to be brought from any
considerable distance, or when frost sets in
suddenly and prevents all tillage. In such
cases, the chapons are tied in bundles, and
their larger ends are put into buckets of water
to the depth of six inches. But when kept
too long in this way, many of the cuttings
rot, and if the planter does not examine them
carefully the proprietor sustains a heavy
loss. Some better mode might be employed.
Hot water near the boiling point is a well-
known means of reviving languished
vegetative powers. A curious fact, related by
Klobe, is that when the early colonists of the
Cape of Good Hope failed in their attempts
to propagate the vine, a German conceived the
idea of slightly burning the extremity of the
cuttings which he planted. Observe, those
were cuttings from Vollenay on this very Côte-
d'Or. The pineau of Burgundy produces the
Constantia wine of the Cape. When the
ground is ready, the vintager, working in a
single row, straight from the top to the bottom
of the hill, makes a long trench, and lays the
baby vine reposing sixteen inches
underground, with the remaining two peeping
above. If there are more than two eyes, he
prunes them back to that.

The first operation of vine culture—the
pulling up of the stakes, begins immediately
after the vintage. They are laid in
heaps at regular distances, after having any
broken or rotten point sharpened by the
women, and are then taken care of to be
replanted in March, April, or the beginning of
May, at the latest. The winter's work consists
in separating the rooted layers from the
parent plant, in pruning the chevelée or super-
abundant roots, and covering them again with
earth. The plant is thus prepared to resist the
rigours of winter, sometimes with the aid of a
little warm manure. Then, there is the
stubbing-up of bad stools, and the half-
digging of holes to supply their places by
layers. When the cold is so intense that
nothing can be done to the vines themselves,
the vigneron has not the more leisure for that.
The soil on a sloping vineyard is washed down
by every shower of rain to the lowest part
of the declivity, where it is stopped by little
walls that are raised for the purpose. The
upper portion of the vineyard, thus denuded
of earth, would at last become so poor that
the vines would perish. To replace the loss,
the vigneron carries on his back hodsful of
earth from the deposit at the bottom, to the
impoverished summit of the hill. He does
his best to oppose the law of nature, which
decrees that every hill shall be levelled with
the plain. This earth-carrying task is of the
greatest utility, and is performed about once
in three years. The new soil is most precious
manure, whose effect is immediately seen in
the produce.

About St. Valentine, pruning commences
on the Côte. It takes place later on the
plain, where frosts are more to be
apprehended. All the top branches are cut away;
nothing is left but one or more stems (according
to the strength of the cep) nearest to the
old wood. Two or three eyes are usually left
to each stem; greedy vine-growers leave as
many as five, but they pay for it afterwards by
the speedy exhaustion of the stool. At pruning-
time, choice is made of branches to make
layers with. The best way is to make the
selection just before the vintage, marking the
plants which produce the greatest abundance
of first-rate fruit. The best tool to prune
with is a serpette, or an English pruning-
knife, when it can be had, just such a one as
the good old servant which sometimes cuts
my wayside bread and cheese or thumb-piece,
and sometimes helps me to put rose-trees in
order. There is an instrument called a
sécateur, a combination of pincers and
scissors, and a great favourite with ignorant
vine-dressers and lazy gardeners, because it
helps them to get over the ground quickly.
I mention it, in order to advise its utter
rejection for any but the roughest purposes.

Full-grown and established vines, which
are entirely cultivated by hand labour, should
receive a tillage four times during every
summer; in mid-March or April, in May, in
June or July, and the fourth in August. If
one of these is more essential than the other,
it is the second. The first, called bêcher
though no digging is employed, is performed
with a peculiar hoe, named a meille, whose
iron is perfectly triangular, except that the
point is elongated. The handle of the meille
is slightly curved to help the labourer, and
the iron is bent towards the handle at a very
sharp angle. It thus forms a sort of hand-
plough as the vigneron draws it towards
himself. This work is performed by men
who toil with naked feet among the rocky
vineyards, where the heat during the summer
tillage sometimes makes it an ordeal, as we
should think, equivalent to walking over
red-hot ploughshares. After the bêcher, the
stakes are planted, which enter more readily