PRACTICAL RULES FOR THE CULTIVATION OF THE VINE—A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, AUCKLAND. BY J. JOHNSON, Esq. M.D., ON FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 26, 1848.

Anglo-Maori Warder, Volume 1, Issue 11, 4 July 1848, Page 1

PRACTICAL RULES FOR THE CULTIVATION OF THE VINE—A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, AUCKLAND. BY J. JOHNSON, Esq. M.D., ON FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 26, 1848.

(Concluded from our last.)

"I consider it a privilege to live in a country where the Vine ripens its fruit in the open air—and to neglect its cultivation is a rejection of one of the choicest gifts of Providence." I have hitherto discussed the agreeable subject of training the vine, until by judiciouß treatment it repays the care and attention bestowed upon it by yielding a j rich and abundant return. I must now, however, turn i to one of a less grateful nature, but to which it is equally necessary to pay the greatest attention, that is the diseases to which the vine is subject, and the various destructive insects that infest the wood and fruit. Some varieties of the vine in this country, arc attacked with what is Galled "the blight," which makes ; its appearance on the young shoots and leaves, almost as soon as they appear in the spring, in the form of dark brown spots or blotches, and at length on the fruit: many causes are assigned, but M'Artliur, who has given the subject much attention for a number of years, believes it to be the effect of a minute parasitical fungus, analagous in habits to the one known by the name of M rust,*' or •* mildew," in wheat. By carefully removing the diseased portions as they appear, the disease may be so much checked as to do little injury. I may mention that out of twenty or more varieties in my garden, fonr only have been affected by it, one a Muscat, and the others of an equally , delicate nature. | There is oniy one insect that injures the wood, and that is a cerambyx, a species of small beetle, which pierces the bark of one variety in particular, and deposits- its egg, from which in time a grub is produced, that bores its nay into the heart or pith of the vine, on which it continues to live until it assumes its perfect form, and eats its way out. In this way whole branches are destroyed and break short off. The aperture is very small, and unfortunately cannot be discovered until the grub is formed and has commenced operations, then, a little wood dust, either on the ground below, or round the bole, marks the spot. It is difficult to know how to destroy this destructive insect—perhaps the injection of strong tobacco juice from a small syringe, might answer the purpose, or a small, sharp-pointed, pliable wire might be pushed ia und transfix the intruder. There are two insects which infest and injure the bunches— the first is a small spider, which by spinning its web to secure its eggs, in the interior of the bunches, particularly those the moat thickly set, prevents a free circulation of air, and causes the berries around it to decay, and which is apt to extend to a large circle round them. The bunches must bu examined, and the vagrant, when discovered, muss be dislodged, and his works destroyed and removed, together with the decayed berries, by a sharp-pointed scissors. The second is a small lively grub or cat terpi liar, about 'three-quarters of an inch long with a Mack head, which, after preying on the epidermis, or hark of the stalks of the bunches, forms for itsolf among the berries, a cocoon or whitish filmy covering, as a snug covering until its next transformation. I have not been able to discover what insect deposits the egg fiom which this creature proceeds, but the effects of its ravages are very annoying, for, not only does it destroy the berries among which it nestles, but wherever it has fed on the bark, all the berrieß hanging below shrivel and decay, and immediately drop off, in this way half a bunch is often lost. The bunches mivt be examined, and the enemy be dislodged and destroyed. I have not remarked that the other varieties of catterpillars, so destructive to other plants, attack the vine, and we are exempted from the plague' of birds, 1 but I have been told by a settler who has railed s»um vines, that rats aud mice prey upon bis grapes. How to obviate their ravages I scurcely know, except by entertaining a preventive force of cuts to prowl abuut the garden. I have now given you the result of my own experience in the management of the vine, and what information, I could glean from writers on its culture in the Southern hemisphere, and I shall be satisfied if I shall have succeeded in stimulating any of my fellow colonists, who may have convenient situations, to cultivate ibis delicious fruit. If tho rales I have just given (and which I hav endeavored to makeexplisit,) arc only followed vvtti common attention, abundance of grapes may be gro» n, at any rate for the table, but it is quite plain that they never on he produced with any certainty by the sloveuly way the few vines are. managed that are planted •round Aucklacd.