Shanking is the technical term for a gangrene which attacks the footstalks of grapes and the stems of cabbages which have vegetated through the winter. The shanking of the grape appears to be occasioned by the temperature of the soil being too much below that in which the branches are vegetating; and, consequently, the supply of sap to the grapes is too much diminished, and the parts which thus fail of support immediately begin to decay; this is an effect always the consequence of a diminished supply of sap, apparent either in the leaves, flower. or fruit. The disease, like every other putrefaction, does not advance rapidly unless there be much moisture in the atmosphere. Shanking never appears in the grape if the roots of the vine are within the house. Shanking in the cabbage arises from a very different cause, viz., the freezing of the stalk of the cabbage just where it comes in contact with the soil. The best preventive is dressing the soil with salt, about five bushels per acre, late in the autumn.