the fresh-stirred earth. This task mostly
falls to the lot of the women. It is their
office also to tie up the vines with rye-straw
or osier two or three times in the course of
the season, as well as to disbud and remove
all troublesome aud unnecessary shoots. If
the vine-shoot is long and weak, and if it is
not carefully tied to its stake, at the first
storm alter the appearance of the blossom-
bud and the development of the earliest
leaves, the twigs beat one against the other,
and the ground is covered with their
premature ruins. During summer, the vignerons
are obliged, time after time, mercilessly to
cull back the rampant branches. At last, by
admitting sunshine and air, and by preventing
the vigour of the vine from exhausting itself
unnecessarily, the berries swell and the
bunches ripen.

On the Côte-d'Or, the vineyards are often
full of little hollows, which are left to nurse
a favourite currant-bush or millet plant in,
or sometimes, I think, for the mere pleasure
of walking up and down hill. The grand
final cause of these numerous hollows is
the necessity of making a preparation
for the layering of vines. That operation
renders the vine immortal, if the soil
on which it is planted is good. There
are renowned vineyards at Vollenay,
Pommard, Beaune, and elsewhere, whose
plantation dates from time immemorial. But to
insure this happy result, the vines must not
be neglected for a single season. Every year,
layers must be made in proportion to the
number of ceps that have perished, whether
from age, inclement seasons, or the still worse
evil of injudicious management. Note, that
when a layer is well made, it gives a few
grapes the first year; in the second, it has
attained its full strength.

To make good wine, you must catch Jean
Raisin at the exact point of ripeness. For
red wines, a little too soon is better than a
little too late. When the day is fixed by the
wise men of the village, troops of vintagers
of all ages and sexes throng in, from ten,
twelve, and fifteen leagues distance, to enjoy
the pleasure of eating their fill of grapes
under the pretence of earning wages. The
vintage, in different localities, commences
on a different appointed day. This is
partly a matter of necessity, as the
vintagers go in bands from one place to
another. And to make good wine, it must be
concocted with a certain degree of celerity
and decision. Good grapes, as in quite the
south of France, often produce bad wine for
no other reason than that the makers are
sluggish about the business; exactly as, in
the beet-sugar manufacture, the slightest halt
in the march of the establishment brings
about a serious check.

When these errant ladies and gentlemen
and children are introduced into a vineyard,
they are ranged in line, and each individual
walks straight before him, her, or it, cutting
every bunch he, she, or it, finds under his,
her, or its noses, and putting them into
little flat baskets. One hand ought to
support the bunch, while the other adroitly
severs the stem. When the fruit is over
ripe, the basket should be set at the foot
of the vine, to catch the loose grapes that
would otherwise fall on the ground and
be lost. The little baskets, when full, are
carried off by a man, styled from his office
vide-panier, or basket-emptier, and their
contents are transferred into the grands
paniers or baskets proper, which are
previously set down at proper intervals within
the area of the vineyard. The whole scene
is often overlooked by a stern gaunt woman,
perhaps the proprietor's wife, who sees that
nothing is lost, and who wastes her energies
on the thankless task of persuading the
gluttons to eat as few grapes as they can.

The baskets proper are then emptied into
balonges, or large oval tubs, each standing
ready upon its own cart. The balonge, when
brimful, is wheeled away to the pressoir, a
word which the dictionary interprets wine-
press, but which on the Côte-d'Or means the
apartment, large or small, wherein wine-
press, tubs, and other wine-making tools are
congregated. The first grapes thrown into
the first balonges, are trampled on by wooden-
shod men upon the spot. The balonges
themselves, arriving at the pressoir, are
emptied into vast round tubs, called cuves.
When the contents of the first balonge are
thrown into the cuve, a vigneron jumps in,
and tramples them as cruelly as he can, to
make what is called the levain, or leaven.
Upon this leaven are cast all the rest of the
slightly crushed or uncrushed grapes as they
are brought from the vineyard. And that is
all that is done to commence or accelerate
the fermentation, the progress of which
is ascertained, amongst other means, by
listening.

Sometimes the grapes are entirely or partially
égrappés, or stripped from the stalks before
being put in the cuve. There are occasionally
years in which although the bunches are
abundant, each bunch only bears some five
or six berries. Little else is to be seen but
a crop of stalks. Stripping then is necessary,
because the stalks would absorb so much
juice as to occasion great loss. Some proprietors,
in less disastrous years, remove a certain
proportion of stalks. The grapes are
put into a large concave wicker sieve, called
an égrappoir, the osiers composing which
cross each other at sufficient distances to
allow something larger than the largest
sized grape to pass between them. The
bunches are thrown into this égrappoir and
the vintager's hand roughly rolls them about.
The berries roll off without being too much
crushed, and the stalks remaining are tossed
aside as useless. But most wine-masters do
not égrapper their grapes at all.

In warm weather, fermentation is soon