178
Agbicultube on the ehine.
vines ; and this is illustrative of the truth of the remark, that
where Nature does the most, man is often tempted to do
the least to improve her gifts. The most recent im-
provements of late years have been made in the regula-
tion of the fermenting process. By care bestowed in
this stage of wine-making, valuable crops that formerly
were wasted are now turned to account. Not that good
treatment will make sour grapes yield sweet must, or
bestow flavour where Nature has withheld it : but for-
merly much fruit that was both well ripened and well fla-
voured, produced, in bad hands, a most unsavoury drink.
The fine wines of this district are all red, and are
treated in the French fashion. The chief reason for
this is that the small red Burgundy grape ripens earlier
and requires less depth of soil than the fine grapes used
in the Rhinegau. A supplementary reason may be, that
red wine allows of additions to heighten the flavour,
such as are well understood in France; whereas the
pure “hock” spurns all artificial adjuncts.
The Ahrbleichart wines, as they are Commonlycalled,
are fully equal to the French “ vin du pays,” in the
northern departments, and at Walportsheim and the
Ahrdale, a wine of generous quality is produced that
may rank with some of the Macon and Rhone growths,
which it resembles more than the Bordeaux clarets.
The cultivation of the vine ought nowhere to be un-
dertaken by peasants, for it supposes the possession of
no inconsiderable capital where it is to prove remu-
nerating. When a vineyard is laid down, three years
are lost before even grapes can be gathered, and wine
cannot be expected before the fifth year. The field se-
lected ought, moreover, to lie fallow for two or three years
AGRICULTURE ON THE RHINE.
179
previous to the planting, and it is then turned over with
the spade and pickaxe and trenched, so that the surface
is buried several feet (where the soil is deep enough)
and Ihesubsoil brought up. Trenches are then opened,
and, in March or April, the cuttings that have beer,
buried in bundles from the previous autumn, and are be-
ginning to sprout, are planted two together at intervals of
four, five, or six feet from one another in rows five feet
asunder. Opinions differ as to whether it is better to
plant the cuttings when they begin to sprout in the
spring, or to wait till the autumn and plant them after
another year’s fallow. The first manure employed is
the grass sod that has formed on the surface during the
preceding year, and it is deemed good to allow this frilly
to decay before the plants are set.
A more difficult matter is the choice of the direction
in which the rows are to run, for in a country where
sunshine is scanty (for the vine), too much care cannot
be bestowed upon the position of the plants so that one
may not shade the other. It is especially necessary that
the sunbeams should sufficiently warm the ground between
the rows, as the grower depends at least as much in the
ripening season upon this reflected heat as upon the direct
solar influence. Where the hills present rapidly changing
aspect, as in the tortuous side-valleys of the Rhine, and
even in the Rhine vale itself, contiguous vineyards may
be seen with the line of their ascending rows varying in
direction with every curve, but always opening to that
point of the heavens where the sun stands in the middle
of his course with regard to that individual slope of the
hill.
The problem of obtaining good wine depends in a