Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/48

8 entrance and circulation as the water, a perpetual coldness in the soil checks the vigour of the plant, or an excess of moisture rots its roots, and causes its decay.

There are, however, soils rich in nutritious substances, which, containing a larger proportion of siliceous or calcareous matter, do not partake of the hurtful qualities of those in which argil predominates. In these, the vine grows freely, but this very strength of vegetation, as has been before observed, is essentially hurtful to the quality of the grape, which, with difficulty, attains to maturity, and produces a wine without strength or flavour. If, then, a rich soil is free and open, the vine planted in it flourishes vigorously, producing in abundance a wine, weak, watery, and destitute of perfume; but, in wet and humid soils of every description, it languishes and dies.

Calcareous soils are in general favourable to the vine; dry, free, and light, they every where afford a free circulation to the water with which they are impregnated, and allow the numerous tender ramifications of the roots to extend in all directions, in search of the juices which are appropriated by the plant. Their stimulating nature, too, which, while it increases the energy of the plant, does not impart to it an excess of nutriment, points them out as peculiarly fitted for its culture.