162 TREATISE ON THE 



found some vignerons so deficient in the know- 

 ledge of their profession, as to strip the vines of 

 these necessary agents of their existence, and 

 thereby issue, as it were, against them the irre- 

 vocable sentence of death. It is by the practical 

 experience of those who have trod before us this 

 devious way, assisted and improved by our own 

 patient investigation, that will enable us to dis- 

 criminate under different circumstances, as ulti- 

 mately to arrive at the system that shall be found 

 adapted to the soil, exposure, and position of each 

 particular vineyard. In the plantation, for ex- 

 ample of a deep and heavy loam, where the vine 

 pushes a vigorous wood, the foliage being con- 

 sequently dense and abundant, the closeness of 

 the leaves keeps the fruit too much in the shade. 

 From the dampness incident to such a situation, 

 the grapes are liable to mildew and blight; and, 

 should the season be rainy, to perish altogether. 

 Where such should be the case, and there is 

 reason to fear that they may be cut off before ar- 

 riving at a healthy maturity, it will be advisable 

 to strip the vines of a part of their foliage in the 

 immediate vicinity of the grapes; but in doing 

 this we must be careful to take only those leaves 

 of the interior, and not of the outer surface of 

 the heading of the plant. There are always 

 small leaves shooting from the bottom of the vine, 

 and such must be carefully pinched off, not torn, 

 by which careless method the back of the stock 

 plant would be injured, leaving the branch so as 

 to be adapted to form the parent fruit-bearing 

 vine of the next or succeeding season. 



There are some vine dressers who, in the ope- 



