western Europe" (Johnson 17). .
The wild vine, like many other plants, carries either male or female flowers; only very rarely both.
on one plant. The female plants therefore can be expected to fruit, given the presence of a male.
nearby to provide the pollen. Males, roughly equal in number, will always be barren. The tiny.
minority of hermaphrodites (those which have both male and female flowers) will bear some.
grapes, but about half as many as the females (Carter). The first people to have cultivated the.
vine would naturally have selected female plants as the fruitful ones and destroyed the barren.
males. Without the males, though, the females would have become barren also. "The only plants.
that would fruit alone or together are the hermaphrodites; trial and error, therefore, would in time.
lead to hermaphrodites alone being selected for cultivation"(Johnson 21).
"A medieval vineyard was wherever possible planted by ploughing into deep furrows, then.
pushing in simple rootless cuttings (short canes of the last year's growth), with a small "heel" of.
older wood attached" (Palmer 18). In Northern Europe the "cuttings" were put firmly into the.
ground a mere short distance apart, and vines covered the soil like a dense carpet, with up to.
20,000 of them to a hectare. In the south, where drought was more of an issue, the spacing was.
much wider; perhaps scarcely 5,000 vines per hectare (Carter).
Unrooted "cuttings" were the cheapest way of planting, but there was extremely small chance of.
them all "taking". Next year there would be gaps to be filled. The more expensive way was to.
grow roots on your cuttings in a nursery bed and transplant them with a tuft of roots, and a third.
way was to "layer" canes onto growing vines by partially burying them, then separating these.
"marcottes" and planting them as soon as they had made roots of their own. Where "marcottage".
was custom, a new vineyard could be producing grapes within three, or even in some instances,.