14 TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



especially in the peach; 5th. It allows the tree, althoup^h furnished with 

 all the necessary shoots and foliage (being in a compact form) to with- 

 stand the storms which prosti'ate and destroy so many badly pruned 

 trees. Never allow the tiee to have a double leader, nor a branch to 

 outgrow the others." 



I will only add, that in my own practice during the last eight or ten 

 years, I have found this mode of pruning more satisfactory than any 

 other, and satisfactory in proportion to the faithfulness with which its 

 theory was caiTied out. Some varieties, with only an annual pruning, 

 are difficult to make good pyramids of; but even an approximation to 

 this form is an advantage as far as it goes. The splitting down of old 

 peach trees cut off "boot-leg high," as Was the precept ten years ago in 

 the Southern Illinois orchard planting, and the rotting cavities in the 

 "crotches" of our old apple trees, are sufficient to condemn the old 

 practice of cutting out the leader. It may answer for regions of cold 

 and cloudy summers, where eveiy ray of sunlight must be economized, 

 but eertainly not in our clear dry atmosphere. 



b. Vineyard Czdtui'e during the last ten years has been wonder- 

 fully advanced, both by the discovery and dissemination of more reliable 

 varieties and in a better teaching and practice of modes of culture. The 

 grape is a profitable fruit, but demands inexorably high culture, timely 

 pnming, training, and pinching. Yet its culture is specially attractive to 

 the cultivated taste, and remunerative to the good manager. 



The American grape is a fruit of wide range. The frost grape grows 

 as far north as latitude 50^, three degrees farther north than Qiiebec, on 

 the Saskatchawan ; and the Southern Fox and summer grapes go 

 down, I believe, to the southern extremity of the United States. Con- 

 sequently, if we can guard against some of the extremes of cold, which 

 are injurious to the vine, by covering with loose earth, or even laying 

 close to the ground, and can secure the leaves and fruit against the cool 

 nights and hot humidity of the growing season, we can grow grapes with 

 great certainty and success nearly everywhere. 



But this '■'•if" contains a great deal. Our continental climate is one of 

 great extremes of heat and cold, humidity and dryness. Humboldt, in 

 his "Cosmos," intimates that we are fated, as Dante says in the third canto 

 of the " Purgatorio" : 



" To suffer torments both of cold and'heat," 



or, as Milton has it, condemned 



" To feel by turn the bitter change 



Of fierce extremes; extremes by change more fierce." 



We can not fully guard against these extremes, especially the saturation 

 of soil and atmosphere that sometimes takes place in the season of most 

 rapid growth. 



It is a curious fact, by the way, that some of the finest fruit is grown 

 in these regions of greatest extremes. The finest apples of Russia are 

 said to come from the Crimea where the thermometer goes up to roo^ 

 of summer heat, and the cold of winter is intense. The like is true of 

 the finest fruit countries of Asia, which are all, I believe, continental in 

 their climates. 



