Cj|e faabian Porticiiltarist 



VOL. II.] JUNE, 1879. [No. 6. 



PRUNING THE GEAPE VINE. 



, BY A. HOOD, BAIIRIE, OXT., (lATE OF FERGUS.) 



So much has beeu written apout pruning, that it is almost pre- 

 sumptuous in one who cannot boast of much experience, to imagine 

 himself able to say anything worth reading on this already threadbare 

 subject ; but it is precisely because so much has been said and so much 

 has been done in this direction that it becomes necessary that some 

 check should be put on this pruning mania, or there is danger of its 

 being overdone. 



An article which appeared in the August number of the Canadian 

 Horticulturist, for 1878, on the subject of summer pruning, met with 

 iny most luuj^ualified approval. In it the writer contends that the nutri- 

 ment of the grape is prepared in the leaves, and if a large part of these be 

 removed, the fruit, be the summer what it may, will never ripen. This 

 appears reasonable, because it is one of the functions of leaves to expose 

 the sap to the action of the sun and air; exactly in the same manner as 

 our lungs expose the venous blood to the action of the atmosphere, by 

 which it is changed into arterial blood, and becomes fitted to afibrd 

 nourishment to all the tissues of the body. The leaves therefore are 

 the lungs of the plant; and it follows as a matter of course that if half 

 of them are removed, the chemical change that should take place in 

 the sap, through the action of the sun upon them, is only imj)erfectly 

 accomplished, and the ripening of the fruit umst be retarded, or the 

 health of the vine affected, in the same way as is the health of a patient 

 who has lost the use of one of his lungs by tubercular consumption ; 

 the analogy however between the two cases is not quite perfect, because 

 the vine can produce more leaves, whereas lungs lost by tUsease cannot 

 be restored; but the production of fresh leaves to take the place of those 

 pruned away, exhausts the vitality of the vine, and this, combined with 



