548 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



when it has grown three or four joints beyond 

 the middle of the roof, and the weaker after 

 having grown three or four feet, for the purpose 

 of strengthening the eyes. At the fall of the 

 leaf, the leading shoots are reduced, the main 

 one to the length of the middle of the roof (c), 

 and the lower one to the third eye (rf). In the 

 third season, one leading shoot is trained in from 

 each shoot (c and d), and from the bearing shoot 

 (c), fruit-bearing side shoots are produced, one 

 bunch is left on each, and the shoot stopped at 

 one or two joints above it : no side shoots are 

 allowed to proceed from the spur (rf), the lead- 

 ing shoot from which is to become the bearing 

 wood for the next year. Thus in the autumn of 

 the third season the lower part of the house is 

 furnished with a crop of grapes from shoots pro- 

 ceeding from wood of the preceding year (e), and 

 parallel to this bearing shoot on each vine is the 

 young shoot for next year's crop. In winter, 

 the shoot from the extremity of the bearing 

 branch (e) is cut off at the top of the roof, or 

 within twelve or fifteen inches of it (g), and the 

 shoot (y) from the spur (c/) is cut down to the 

 middle of the roof, and all the spurs (on e) which 

 had borne the grapes are now cut out. Each vine 

 is now furnished with two shoots of bearing wood 

 (g,f), a part of old barren wood (<?), and a spur 

 for producing a young shoot the following year (A). 

 In the fourth summer a full crop is produced 

 both in the upper and lower half of the house ; 

 the longer shoot bearing on the upper half of its length, and the shorter on its whole 

 length ; a leading shoot is produced from the short shoot, and another from the spur. 

 In the pruning season of the fourth year, the centre shoot is entirely removed, and re- 

 placed by the side shoot (£), now the whole length of the roof, and this side shoot is in 

 its turn supplanted by the shoot (k) from the spur, while a spur (Z) is prepared to suc- 

 ceed it. This constitutes one rotation or period of the system of Mearns, which he has 

 followed since 1806, attended by abundant crops of large-sized bunches; and he con- 

 siders it may be continued for any length of time. (Hort. Trans, iv. 246.) 



2986. In the garden of Marie Leerne, at Ghent, the vines are planted in front, on the 

 outside of the house. Every year a new set of wood is taken into the vinery : the 

 wood produced this year, is trained upright on an exterior trellis, and is next season 

 laid down to a sloping trellis, and made to yield its fruit within the house. The wood 

 which has once been forced is cut entirely out, and, from the same roots, new upright 

 shoots are annually required ; but unfortunately for the success of this plan these 

 shoots do not always ripen. {Hort. Tour. 62.) 



2987. Summer pruning. This depends generally on the necessity of admitting light 

 and air to the fruit and young wood ; and particularly on the sort of winter pruning to 

 be adopted. " The gardener, therefore," as Nicol observes, " must have a predesti- 

 nating eye to the following season." " Whatever methods of pruning are used," 

 M'Phail remarks, " the grape-vine, through the whole course of the growing season, 

 requires constant attendance, so as not to suffer the plant to be crowded in any part 

 with superfluous shoots or leaves, and no more fruit ought to be suffered to swell on the 

 plant than it is well able to bring to perfection. The berries also on each bunch 

 should be thinned, so that they may have room to swell, without pressing too hard 

 upon each other." 



2988. Abercrombie and M'Phail agree in directing, that " as the shoots of newly planted vines advance, they 

 must be kept regularly fastened to the rafters. Divest them of their wires, and also take off their laterals 

 as they appear. The vines in general may be permitted to run twenty feet, and the most vigorous thirty- 

 five feet, before they are stopped, if the rafters extend so far. Sometimes a vigorous shoot, having ex- 

 tended the width of the house, is conducted either in a returning direction down a contiguous rafter, or 

 laterally along the top of the stove, as may be most convenient. Stop the shoots by pinching off their 

 tdps. After they have been stopped, they usually send out laterals from three or four of the upper eyes. 

 If these laterals are at once taken off, the sap will be merely diverted to the lower part of the shoot ; 

 permit them, therefore, to proceed about twelve inches, and then pinch off their tops. These shortened 

 laterals will, in their turn, send out others, which should be stopped at the second joint" 



2989. In the second season, " as soon as the shoots are half a span long, the rudiments of the bunches will 

 be perceptible. The bunch is produced on the naked side of the shoot, opposite the leaf-bud. Having 

 ascertained the most promising shoots, divest the vines of supernumerary branches as they rise. Fruitful 

 laterals will sometimes show two or three bunches at each eye ; and this is apt to tempt the pruner to 

 retain too many. On the leading shoot, retain of the best laterals, to the right and left, a number pro- 



