DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



leave, therefore, I propose to say something in 

 explanation. 



A leading principle in the theory of pruning 

 attempted to be set up by me, supposes an ex- 

 cessive growth of wood and the simultaneous 

 production of an excessive fruit crop, incompati- 

 ble things, and it was about this principle I was 

 reasoning when the statement was made that 

 everybody does or may know that upon a vine 

 capable of sending out shoots 10, 15, to 20 feet 

 long, if two branches be taken, each having one 

 cluster of grapes, and they be so treated that 

 one forms no wood, whilst the other makes a 

 long shoot, the cluster on the branch without 

 wood will be large, the other a starvling. This 

 is no paradox — the doctrine may be found in the 

 books prior to 184G. and now is becoming 

 rife. 



In a late number of the Western Horticultural 

 Review may be found a good article setting 

 forth in substance that the gooseberry may be 

 successfully grown and mildew prevented sim- 

 ply by cutting out all the shoots of alight green 

 color, thereby preventing a diversion of the sap 

 from nursing the young fruit. Indeed, if I mis- 

 take not the j>ersonal identity of C, he too is 

 an eminently successful grower of the goose- 

 berry upon this identical principle, pinching out 

 the points of his growing shoots during the cariy 

 stages of development in the fruit crop, and 

 afterward rubbing off any buds bursting into 

 growth while the crop is maturing. What I 

 said further in relation to summer pruning had 

 reference merely to the time of performing the 

 operation, and upon this branch of the subject I 

 only say that most cultivators fix upon a time 

 subsequent to the setting of the fruit, intimating 

 myself that in cases of great luxuriance this 

 setting of the fruit is a period too late to secure 

 the greatest advantage to the crop by cutting 

 out the growing points of the bearing branches, 

 whilst, as my theory maintains, if the wood- 

 forming and fruit-bearing forces be equally bal- 

 anced, no pruning may be required at all. 

 There is one suggestion in my article of May to 

 which the attention of " C." and of cultivators 

 generally is respectfully invited, and that is a 

 founding of the rule of practice in this case upon 

 principle instead of dogmatism— upon the con- 

 dition of the vine, not the length or breadth of 

 rellis, making luxuriance in the branches 



a test for the necessity of pruning and not " in 

 convenient length." The suggestion of that 

 article goes even farther than this ; it contem- 

 plates grouping all plants bearing the fruit crop 

 upon branches of the current year's growth, 

 which branches are capable of making an active 

 growth at the jioints after setting the fruit crop 

 into one class, in which over-luxuriance in each 

 was manageable by a common remedy — short- 

 ening-in. In maintenance of that suggestion, 

 allow me to make a few quotations. Gen. 

 James Hamilton, in an excellent agricultural 

 address delivered to a cotton growing audience 

 at Fort Mitchell, Alabama, in July, 1844, takes 

 occasion to say that he was " satisfied that in a 

 rank and wet season we shall make at least one- 

 third more to the acre by topping the cotton 

 plant at about four and a half feet high and 

 afterward shortening-in the long laterals." 



Of the tomato. Prof. Mapes, whom his co- 

 temporaries consider as "no mean authority," 

 says in a late number of his well conducted pe- 

 riodcal, the Working Farmer, " All must have 

 observed that 90 per cent of the fruit is within 

 18 inches of the ground, while 90 per cent of 

 the vine, containing only 10 per cent of the fruit, 

 grows above this point. Therefore, cut it off" 

 with the small tomatoes, and the large ones left 

 will increase in size more than equal in value to 

 the 10 per cent cut off." 



Why not study the management of these 

 plants, with the melon, the vine, and others of 

 like habits? It seems to be admitted in all that 

 the power to form perfect fruit or seed is check- 

 ed by the presence of a wood -gi-owth too active, 

 and that, under one name or another, topping, 

 cutting off, or pinching out, the process of short- 

 ening in is applied as a corrective Conformity 

 to the requisitions of science would not be the 

 only result brought about by grouping. It would 

 afford fresh facilities for effecting progress in 

 the art and science of cultivation by opening a 

 new field for comparison, whilst every hint 

 gleaned from such a field would swell in impor- 

 tance, because applicable to a whole class, in- 

 stead of an individual species. Connected in- 

 timately with this subject is the question, what 

 leaves are they which in this whole class of 

 plants nourish the seed forms or fruit? — are they 

 those between the points on the annual shoot, 

 where the fruit is located, and the base of the 



