time with it if
of the long kind, or six months after if of the short kind, as before
described. Some indeed prefer an interval of twelve months; as in good
soil the luxuriancy of the vine will often overpower and bear down the
prop, if it has not first acquired competent strength. In such soil the
vine rises two or three feet in the course of the first year, and four or
five more in the second, by which time, or between the second and third
year of its growth, it begins to show its blossom (be-gagang), if in fact
it can be called such, being nothing more than the germ of the future
bunch of fruit, of a light straw colour, darkening to green as the fruit
forms. These germs or blossoms are liable to fall untimely (gugur) in
very dry weather, or to be shaken off in high winds (although from this
accident the gardens are in general well sheltered by the surrounding
woods), when, after the fairest promise, the crop fails.

TURNING DOWN THE VINES.

In the rainy weather that succeeds the first appearance of the fruit the
whole vine is loosened from the chinkareen and turned down again into the
earth, a hole being dug to receive it, in which it is laid circularly or
coiled, leaving only the extremity above ground, at the foot of the
chinkareen, which it now reascends with redoubled vigour, attaining in
the following season the height of eight or ten feet, and bearing a full
crop of fruit. There is said to be a great nicety in hitting the exact
time proper for this operation of turning down; for if it be done too
soon, the vines have been known not to bear till the third year, like
fresh plants; and on the other hand the produce is ultimately retarded
when they omit to turn them down until after the first fruit has been
gathered; to which avarice of present, at the expense of future
advantage, sometimes inclines the owners. It is not very material how
many stems the vine may have in its first growth, but now one only, if
strong, or two at the most, should be suffered to rise and cling to the
prop: more would be superfluous and only weaken the whole. The
supernumerary shoots however are usefully employed, being either
conducted through narrow trenches to adjacent chinkareens whose vines
have failed, or taken off at the root and transplanted to others more
distant, where, coiled round and buried as the former, they rise with the
same vigour, and the garden is completed of uniform growth, although many
of its original vines have