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    * FRUITS IN- THEIR SEASON. 165

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    Ii.-^-Geape Gatherings. Whether Our Firs...

    ripe , the sun candying them when thus suspended , and the separation being leted as soon as they are dry .

    But it is comp by no means absolutely necessary that the fruit should be dried before it can travel to us , for the rapid transit afforded by

    steam permits us to receive upwards of £ 10 , 000 worth of fresh foreigrapes during the seasonbrought over packed in sawdust .

    Various gn means may be resorted , to when it is wished to preserve them for any length of time ; the classical mode was to suspend

    them in jars of wine ; the Americans prefer to imbed them in cotton wadding ; among ourselves they are usually hung upon a line in a

    dry room . Some invert the bunches , hanging the stalk end downwards , since the berries then do not rest upon each other ; and the

    favorite plan of one fruit-grower was to cut off a portion of the stem along with the bunch ( which in any case promotes the preservation

    of the fruit ) and insert the part below the grapes into a bottle of waterwhich was occasionally changed . Others content themselves

    "with sealing , each end of that portion of the branch to which the fruit is attached .

    Tusser , in- 1560 , speaks only of two kinds of grapes grown in Englandthe white and the redbut so much have varieties

    multiplied since , then that a list made , by Thompson in 1842 enumerates ninety-nine kinds , and by the present time above a dozen more have

    been added , while in foreign countries they are numbered by hundredsthough practicallthere is but one species grown in Europe .

    the It is best testified , varieties however but that by y Loudon we grow , that the in fruit Britain to a larger we have size not and onl of y

    a higher flavor than , anywhere else in the world , owing to the _unremitting attention devoted by our gardeners to the soil and culture

    of their vines , and to the perfection with which we regulate artificial climate . He adds that the Chasselas , or Muscadine , is almost the

    only eating grape known in the Paris fruit-market . The name of this varietis not derivedas miht be supposedfrom the musky

    y , g , flavor which distinguishes them , but from the berries being particularlattractive to flies ( _muscce ) a reason which caused the Romans

    to nam y e them vitis apiaria . The , Muscadine Royal , the Chasselas par excellence of the French , is largely grown near Fontainebleau ,

    and is known in Covent Garden by the name of its native place . That English-grown kind which , as Mr . M'lntosh says , is " the

    best of all black grapes , and deservedly the most popular , " is the Black Hamburghwhich owes its name to having been introduced

    into this country from , Hamburgh in 1724 , though it came originally from Franckenthal on the Rhine , and is known all over the Continent

    as the Franckenthal grape . When in perfection , the skin of the berries is quite blackcovered with a thick bloombut it will

    sometimes appear brown , or red , even on a vino which , has hitherto borne fruit of the most approved tintthis deterioration being a

    sure symptom of something wrong in , the soil or temperature of

    the vinery .

    * Fruits In- Their Season. 165

    * FRUITS IN- THEIR SEASON . 165

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Nov. 1, 1860, page 165, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01111860/page/21/