GRAPES. 319 



Secretary Latham: Yes, you can always get branches enough 

 in the proper place. I want to say a word about this matter 

 of pinching, while I am on my feet. I heard some statements 

 here that I do not exactly agree with. Somebody said that by 

 pinching too close, you would not get fruit, etc. It is true, you 

 must not take the leaves off; if you go into the vineyard and 

 take many leaves off. you do serious harm in proportion to the 

 number of leaves you take off; but there is one safe way for you 

 to pinch the vines, and if you want to get large, compact 

 branches of fruit, you must pinch and pinch close. If you want 

 to get spurs, the buds on which are well developed, you must 

 pinch and pinch close. 



The way to pinch is to begin when the new growth has 

 reached that point where the blossom ajjpears. There 

 is the place to pinch, and you should do it at once, and not wait 

 until you have to pinch off three or four or half a dozen leaves — 

 but do it at once. It turns the flow of sap in another direction, and 

 does not cripple the vine. You need not wait until you have a 

 leaf three inches in diameter, but pinch as soon as you can get 

 at it handily. Follow this up through the growing season, and 

 you will get some fruit that will astonish you. I want to say 

 in regard to Delawares that if you are raising fruit for market 

 you should not pinch that way, because the bunches grow so 

 compact that they burst before they are ripe enough to gather. 

 When we got twenty cents 'a pound for grapes, then it paid to 

 pinch and raise splendid bunches. Now instead of using the 

 finger and thumb for pinching, I take a corn knife, but I do not 

 wait until I have to take off a great mass of foliage. Instead 

 of doing that, I go over them every week, and it is not much 

 work to take care of them that way. 



Mr. Cook: I have a little delicacy in speaking of grapes be- 

 fore these Minnetonka grape growers, but I cannot sit here and 

 hear the Moore's Early mentioned unfavorably. It is evident 

 that these gentlemen have not the soil adapted to a Mooi-e's 

 Early grape. I have about four hundred Moore's Early and 

 find it to be the best grape I have ever raised. I believe that 

 the Moore's Early is the best grape on the list for our sec- 

 tion of the country.' Speaking of digging them up and putting 

 Brightons in their place, I will say that at the time I planted 

 my Moore's Early, I also planted fifty Brightons. This year I 

 got nothing off the Brightons, while I got a good crop from the 

 Moore's Early. They both had the same care. 



