Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/146

 when these milder applications cannot be procured, the stronger manures should be allowed to ferment, and to lose, as much as possible, of their carbonic acid. It is better to manure, in one year, only one part of the vineyard, and its injurious effects on the quality of the wine, are thus less observable. Different sorts of manure are also applied to different soils: and thus, when they tend to stiffness, an amendment frequently consists of sand, especially when mixed with shells, and other calcareous matter, Besides, the emanations from plants growing in the vineyards, and the principles imbibed from substances employed as manure, the neighbourhood of a lime kiln, of a charcoal furnace, or of any establishment where sea coal is consumed, is sufficient to give the wine a disagreeable taste, although it is not observable in the fruit before fermentation.

The capillary tubes of some kinds of the vine, frequently take up, also very minutely divided parts of the predominant earth, and give to the wine a taste, flavour, or perfumes, characteristic of it. Thus, the taste of the soil, "gout de terroir," is frequently a virtue, as in that called gun flint, "pierre de fusil," and sometimes disagreeable, as when aluminous. These latter, and many other tastes in the wine, are inherent in the nature of the soil; and it is to this that many de-