138 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



two of those branches, back to the last branch, which was the 

 first bud on the spur the preceding year, and that you will cut 

 back to three eyes, as before. You can see how easy that 

 method would be. 



Now, as to summer pruning. I believe summer pruning to 

 be pernicious. It is the custom to pinch the grape in summer ; 

 I have done it until a very recent period, not being aware that 

 with a little neglect I should have a larger crop and a more vig- 

 orous vine. And that seems to be very reasonable when you 

 look at it. It is very well to pinch the grape once, at two leaves, 

 we will say, beyond the farthest bunch. If the growing shoot 

 sets three bunches, then at two leaves from the third bunch I 

 would pinch the growing shoot, which would set back the sap to 

 strengthen that part of the wood, and develop those bunches 

 which you leave. It has been the custom among grape-growers, 

 and is still practised among those who think it the best method, 

 to pinch again and again ; but during the past summer, I have 

 let mine grow, without pinching, until the growing branches, 

 two or three yards long, have touched the ground, and covered 

 the crop with successive layers of foliage, not lying so close 

 upon each other as to smother the foliage and destroy it, but so 

 close that it would keep off effectually the first frosts of autumn 

 from the ripe fruit. It is necessary that there should be foliage 

 enough to perfectly ripen and make into true sap, the crude sap 

 which the root takes up. Nature gets rid of part of the watery 

 particles by evaporation, and part are taken up ; but if you have 

 root power sufficient to make three feet of wood, and take away 

 half, the elaborating surface is only one-half what it should have 

 been, and your vine is impaired in some degree in some of its 

 functions. An eminent writer at the West, Professor Kirtland, 

 believes that the bad condition of the Catawba is due to exces- 

 sive pruning and over-cropping together. He thinks that prun- 

 ing too close, and robbing the vine of its foliage, have induced a 

 diseased condition of the sap, which has ultimately broken out 

 in the form of rot and canker, which have in some cases 

 destroyed whole vineyards, or prevented their bearing at all, so 

 that they have dug them up, and planted more hardy grapes. 

 Now, the Catawba was a rampant grower in the beginning, and 

 thought to be perfectly hardy and vigorous, and free from all 

 disease ; and it had been grown many years before the rot 



