SUMMER PRUNING THE GRAPE VINE. 



65 



summer will admit of ; it may be sour and 

 colourless, but that condition will be per- 

 fect of its kind. 



"(3.) But if all the fruit which a healthy 

 tree will show is allowed to set, and a large 

 part of the leaves is abstracted, such fruit, 

 be the summer what it may, will never 

 ripen. 



" (4.) Therefore, if a necessity exists for 

 taking off a part of the leaves of a tree, a 

 part of its fruit should also be destroyed. 



"(5.) But although a tree may be able to 

 ripen all the fruit which it shows, yet such 

 fruit will neither be so large nor so sweet, 

 under equal circumstances, as if a part of 

 it is removed ; because a tree only forms a 

 certain amount of secretions, and if those 

 secretions are divided among twenty fruits 

 instead of ten, each fruit will in the former 

 case have but half the amount of nutrition 

 which it would have received in the latter 

 case. 



"(6.) The period of ripening in fruit will 

 be accelerated by an abundant foliage, and 

 retarded by a scanty foliage." 



Dr. LiNDLEY stated, that he considered 

 these propositions as the expression of ge- 

 neral truths, applicable to all cases, but 

 especially to the vine. If they were found- 

 ed, as he believed, in well ascertained laws, 

 then the rigorous summer pruning of the 

 vine is totally wrong. He recommended, 

 on the contrary, that not only should the 

 whole crop of leaves be unpruned, but 

 that the lateral shoots, always hitherto re- 

 moved, should be allowed to remain ; be- 

 cause " all those laterals, if allowed to 

 grow, would by the end of the season have 

 contributed somewhat to the matter stored 

 in the stem for the nutrition of the fruit ; 

 because the preparation of such matter 

 would have been much more rapid ; and 

 because the ripening of the fruit, which de- 

 pends on the presence of such matter, 



would have been in proportion to the ra- 

 pidity of its formation." 



" It is a mistake," continues he, " to ima- 

 gine that the sun must shine on the bunches 

 of grapes in order to ripen them. Nature 

 intended no such thing, when heavy clus- 

 ters Avere caused to grow on slender stalks, 

 and to hang below the foliage of branches, 

 attached to trees by their strong and nume- 

 rous tendrils. On the contrary, it is evi- 

 dent that vines naturally bear their fruit in 

 such a way as to screen it from the sun ; 

 and man is most unwise when he rashly in- 

 terferes with this intention. What is want- 

 ed is the full exposure of the leaves to the 

 sun ; they will prepare the nutriment of the 

 grape — they will feed it, and nurse it, and 

 eventually rear it up into succulence and 

 lusciousness." 



Struck at that time with the soundness 

 and the force of this reasoning, we immedi- 

 ately put in practice the suggestions it con- 

 tained. "VVe abandoned, for the most part, 

 summer pruning on our vines, and recom- 

 mended it verbally to many others. The 

 result of three years' trial has fully con- 

 vinced us, and we believe all others who 

 have tested it, of the entire superiority of 

 the grapes, both as regards maturity and 

 the weight of the crop, in all cases where 

 the common and severe system of summer 

 pruning is abandoned. 



All that we find it necessary to do now, 

 with grapes in the open air, is, at the begin- 

 ning of July, to go over them and tie up to 

 the trellis or frame, all rambling shoots. 

 If, from any neglect at the season of winter 

 pruning, or when the buds were thinned in 

 May, too many young shoots have been 

 suffered to grow, a few of them may be 

 cut out, close down to the point where 

 they start, taking off* the whole branch — 

 fruit and leaves. The remaining branches 

 and leaves will then be able to provide 



