The vines are supported by stakes, when of oak costing sixty francs the thousand; and as in the Champagne a close system of plantation is followed, no less than 24,000 stakes are required on every acre of land, making the cost per acre of propping up the vines upwards of £57, or double what it is in the Médoc and quadruple what it is in Burgundy. These stakes are set up in the spring of the year by men or women, the former of whom force them into the ground by pressing against them with their chest, which is protected with a shield of stout leather. The women use a mallet, or have recourse to a special appliance, in working which the foot plays the principal part. The latter method is the least fatiguing, and in some localities
is practised by the men. An expert labourer will set up as many as 5,000 of these stakes in the course of the day. After the vines have been hoed around their roots they are secured to the stakes, and the tops are broken off at a shoot to prevent them from growing above the regulation height, which is ordinarily from 30 to 33 inches. They are liberally manured with a kind of compost formed of the loose friable soil dug out from the sides of the mountain, and of supposed volcanic origin, mixed with animal and vegetable refuse. The vines are shortened back while in flower, and in the course of the summer the ground is hoed a second and a third time, the object being, first, to destroy the superficial roots of the vines and force the plants to live solely on their deep roots; and, secondly, to remove all pernicious weeds from round about them. After the third hoeing, which takes place in the middle of August, the vines are left to themselves until the period of the vintage. When this is over the stakes supporting the vines are pulled up and stacked
in compact masses, with their ends out of the ground, the vine, which is left curled up in a heap, remaining undisturbed until the winter, when the earth around it is loosened. In the month of February it is pruned and sunk into the earth, as already described, so as to leave only the new wood aboveground. Owing to the vines being planted so closely together they starve one another, and numbers of them perish. When this is the case, or the stems get broken during the vintage, their places are filled up by provining.
The vignerons of the Champagne regard the numerous stakes which support the vines as affording some protection against the white frosts of the spring. To guard against the dreaded effects of these frosts, which invariably occur between early dawn and sunrise, and the loss arising from which is estimated to amount annually to 25 per cent. some of the cultivators place heaps of hay, faggots, dead leaves, &c., about twenty yards apart, taking care to keep them moderately damp. When a frost is feared the heaps on the side of the vineyard whence the wind blows are set light to, whereupon the dense smoke which rises spreads horizontally over the vines, producing the same result as an actual cloud, intercepting the rays of the sun, warming the atmosphere, and converting the frost into dew. Among other methods adopted to shield the vines from frosts is the joining of branches of broom together in the form of a fan, and afterwards fastening them to the end of a pole, which is placed obliquely in the ground, so that the fan may incline over the vine and protect it from the sun’s rays. A single labourer can plant, it is said, as many as eight thousand of these fans in the ground in the course of a long day.
Dr. Guyot’s system of roofing the vines with straw matting, to protect them alike against frost and hailstorms, is very generally followed in low situations in the Champagne, the value of the wine admitting of so considerable an expense being incurred. This matting, which is about a foot and a half in width, and in rolls of great length, is fastened either with twine or wire to the vine stakes, and it is estimated that half-a-dozen
men can fix nearly 11,000 yards of it, or sufficient to roof over 2½ acres of vines, during an ordinary day.
Owing to the system of cultivation by rejuvenescence, and the constant replenishing of the soil by well-compounded manures, the Champenois winegrowers entertain great hopes that their vineyards will escape the ravages of the phylloxera vastatrix. According to Dr. Plonquet of Ay they are already the prey of no less than fifteen varieties of insects, which feed upon the leaves, stalks, roots, or fruit of the vines. Between 1850 and 1860 the vineyards of Ay were devastated by the pyrale, a species of caterpillar, which feeds on the young leaves and shoots until the vine is left completely bare. The insect eventually becomes transformed into a small white butterfly, and deposits its eggs either in the crevices of the stakes or in the stalks of the vine. All the efforts made to rid the vineyards of this scourge proved ineffectual until the wet and cold weather of 1860 put a stop to the insect’s ravages. More recently it has been discovered that its attacks can be checked by sulphurous acid.