WINTER MEETING. 191 



provides shade for the fruit, considerable advantage is gained. I do 

 most assuredly, and practice it. As the vines awaken from their winter 

 sleep in the spring and the buds begin to swell and burst forth, it 

 will be observed that two buds often appear from what seemed but 

 -one in the dormant state. The first and simple operation in summer 

 pruning is to rub off one of these as superfluous. A simple touch of 

 the finger will do it. The weakest and generally the lowest one has to 

 go. If the buds from any cause start feebly, the sooner this is done 

 the better for those that remain. If their shoots have grown a foot or 

 a foot and a half long, no matter ; the check to the vine will be greater 

 and their removal none the less demanded. 



It is apt to hurt one's feelings to destroy so many prospective 

 clusters of fruit, and the temptation to allow them to remain is very 

 strong. The remaining shoots are pinched off at one or two leaves 

 beyond the last cluster of fruit, and all laterals are stopped in the same 

 way as recommeuded for the young vines, to one leaf. This is done 

 before the bloom. These bearing canes and laterals, after recovering 

 from the check thus given, will soon recover and make a fresh start in 

 wood-making, and the pinching process is repeated as before, leaving 

 an additional leaf each time. The leaves remaining increa;Se in size 

 much beyond their normal proportion, and I have a theory that a strong, 

 vigorous leaf of this kind is most capable of resisting the attack of 

 mildew, and the larger and finer the fruit will be. This pinching process 

 also results in full, plump and well-developed buds on the canes to be 

 left for next year's fruiting. 



DISEASES. 



The grape, like all ^ther fruits, is subject to disease, especially if 

 its vitality be lowered by any means. Mildew and rot are most to be 

 feared. 



Mildew is caused mainly by too much moisture in the soil, and 

 is augmented by a lack of air and sunshine on the foliage. Rapid and 

 perfect drainage is the remedy. The rot is caused by the spores of a 

 fungus, which, though invisible to the naked eye, are carried by the 

 wind and deposited on the fruit, where they generate and grow, caus- 

 ing the rot. These rotten grapes lie on the ground all winter, and 

 when the warm weather comes the spores are again sent out like smoke 

 from a puff-ball, and are deposited on green grapes, where the same 

 process is repeated. If the rotten grapes could be swept up and 

 burned in the fall, the number of spores would be greatly diminished, 

 especially if our neighbors do the same. This is why grapes never rot 

 when grown on a building under a cornice. 



