148 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 



weather. In this way I may get lighter crops of fruit, but I have 

 an additional security of the health, both of it and of the vine. 



{d.) For the same reason, also, I permit the small shoots that 

 spring up at mid-summer about the root of the plant to remain, 

 as they, like the weeds and grass, serve to shield the root of the 

 plant from the sun and cold wind. In case the weeds and grass 

 become large I cut off a portion of them, but by no means lay 

 the ground bare, or stir it with any tool. This plan of letting the 

 young shoots remain, I took from a hint given by the late James 

 G. Tracy, of Syracuse, who told me some twelve years since, that 

 he had observed in years of disease, that those vines, wliose roots 

 were broadly sheltered by their own foliage, were most likely to 

 escape disease. Many years since I conceived tlie plan, which 

 others have since carried out and patented, of training my grapes 

 on a trellis, made fast at the foot, and adjustible at the top, so as 

 to be set at any angle of inclination to the horizon. In this way 

 one vine may be made to shade the roots of another, and the 

 angle of its inclination so changed as to increase or lessen the 

 action of the sun on the plant itself. 



(e.) The health of our vine is often injured in the spring, and 

 both it and the fruit in the fall, by untimely frosts. We often 

 find that the occurrence of irost in the fall, a single week before 

 the grape is perfectly ripe, results in an almost entire loss of the 

 grape for the table; since they do not possess the power of matu- 

 ring when prematurely picked as many apples, pears, &c., do. 

 The interposition of a screen of movable boards, forming a cop- 

 ing over the trellis or fence on which the grapes are trained, 

 would in almost all cases of such untimely frost, protect the crop. 

 This method is said by Kenrick, (p. 267, edition of 1841,) to be 

 practiced by the French near Fontainbleau, except that this 

 coping is permanent. In the case of an ordinary trellis it would 

 only be necessary to attach permanent horizontal cross pieces to 

 the top of the trellis, at short intervals, these would serve as 

 supports of the coping, made of light wide boards, which could 

 easily be elevated to its place by two persons, just before an 

 anticipated frost. < 



