64 THE BOOK OF THE GRAPE 



SELECTING AND THINNING THE BUNCHES 



As soon as the bunches on the several vines have set 

 their berries, the question as to how many bunches each 

 vine is capable of satisfactorily ripening should be de- 

 termined forthwith. Needless to say, the finest, best 

 placed, and most evenly set bunches should be retained, 

 these being distributed regularly along the vines. The 

 vigour and length of each vine should be considered in 

 deciding the number of bunches that shall constitute the 

 crop, as well as the size of the bunches which the culti- 

 vator has the choice of retaining or removing. The size 

 of bunch which certain varieties of the grape-vine is 

 capable of producing should also be considered in this 

 direction. 



A fully-established and well-conditioned vine, say, 

 nineteen feet long, of Black Hamburg, Muscat of 

 Alexandria, Madresfield Court, Buckland Sweetwater, 

 Mrs Pince's Black Muscat, Gros Colmar, Gros Maroc, 

 Black Alicante, showing fairly large-framed bunches 

 likely to turn the scale at three pounds when ripe, and 

 to colour well at the same time, should not be allowed to 

 carry more than eight such bunches for a crop. A 

 greater or lesser number of bunches, according to their 

 size and the length of the vine, may be safely retained 

 for a crop, providing the weight of grapes does not 

 much exceed one pound per foot in length of the vine ; 

 that is to say, does not exceed twenty-four pounds of 

 first-rate grapes as a crop for a vine nineteen feet long 

 from the bottom of the trellis. 



In the case of "large-bunch" varieties, such as Gros 

 Guillaume and Trebbiano, mistakes are often made in 

 leaving more bunches for a crop than the vine can pos- 

 sibly ripen satisfactorily, cultivators forgetting at the 

 right time that the larger the bunches promise to be 

 the fewer they should be in number for the crop. 



