Hozv shall wc plant and pi'une our Vmeyards ? 29 



that the attempt to dwarf the vine by too close planting, and the terrible 

 mutilating it is yearly subjected to, has been one of the principal causes 

 of the wide-spread disease which alFects the native vine ; and, other 

 diings being equal, just in proportion as this has been practised in any 

 locality, will you find them mourning over the loss of crops and dis- 

 eased vineyards. In the Crooked Lake region, as some of their best 

 known cultivators have repeatedly assured me, they attributed their suc- 

 cess in ripening the Catawba to excessive pruning, adding to that sum- 

 mer pruning ; but Nature has rebelled at last, and this year, as Judge 

 Larrowe rejDorted at the New York State Grape Fair, their crop was 

 almost an entire failure from rot. 



Mr. Byington goes to the other extreme, and boldly sets at defiance 

 all former ideas of pruning, even in the matter of removing laterals, 

 allowing them all to grow ; to quote his own vigorous English — "I 

 would kick a man out of my vineyard who should come in and com- 

 mence removing laterals." Now, in this conflict of oi^inions I suspect 

 that we shall find in the old proverb, " in med/as res Veritas" a solution 

 of the difficulty, and that our safer course lies between the extremes. 

 This season we tried the experiment on our Delaware vineyard of re- 

 moving the laterals from about one third of the vines with this result : 

 the fruit on those vines was later in ripening, and the foliage not so 

 healthful as on the balance of the vineyard ; so marked, indeed, was 

 the eflect, that it was easy to tell from quite a distance, by the diflerence 

 in color of foliage, just where the experiment was discontinued. We 

 have been taught that the Delaware, of all our native varieties, would 

 best endure severe pruning ; and this idea has undoubtedly originated in 

 part from the fact that its first or lower buds, unlike many other vari- 

 eties, are ahvays fruitful, and consequently we do not fail of fruit with 

 close pruning. The above experiment, however, with others, has con- 

 vinced me that this is very far from the truth, and that in reality its 

 delicate foliage will not permit of rough handling so well as many other 

 varieties. 



With my past experience to guide me, I would, first, plant the strong- 

 er growing varieties, as Isabella, Concord, Diana, &c., twelve to fifteen 

 feet apart in the trellis, with a space of nine feet between, and never 



