GRAPE. 85 



which case, three or more shoots, eighteen inches or two feet 

 in length, may diverge from the stem near the ground, to 

 supply young wood annually for bearing. The summer 

 pruning consists in removing shoots which have no fruit, or 

 are not required for the succeeding season ; and in topping 

 fruit-bearing shoots, and also those for succeeding years, 

 when inconveniently long and straggling. For as, by this 

 mode, the shoots destined to bear are all cut into three or 

 four eyes at the winter pruning, no inconvenience arises from 

 their throwing out laterals near the extremities, which top- 

 ping will generally cause them to do. 



In training vines as standards, the single stem at the bot- 

 tom is not allowed to exceed six or eight inches in height, 

 and from this two or three shoots are trained, or tied to a 

 single stake of three or four feet in length. These shoots 

 bear each two or three bunches, within a foot or eighteen 

 inches of the ground, and they are annually succeeded by 

 others which spring from their base, that is, from the crown 

 or top of the dwarf main stem. This is the mode practised 

 in the North of France and in Germany ; in the South of 

 France and Italy, the base or main stem is often higher, and 

 furnished with side shoots, in order to afford a great supply 

 of bearing wood, which is tied to one or more poles of 

 greater height. The summer pruning, in this case, is nearly 

 the same as in the last. In the winter pruning, the wood 

 that has borne is cut out, and the new wood shortened, in 

 cold situations, to three or four eyes, and in warmer places, 

 to six or eight eyes. 



Nicol observes, that " Most of the summer pruning of 

 vines may be performed with the fingers, without a knife, 

 the shoots to be displaced being easily rubbed off, and those 

 to be shortened, being little, are readily pinched asunder." 

 After selecting the shoots to be trained for the production of 

 a cjop next season, and others necessary for filling the trellis 

 from the bottom, which shoots should generally be laid in 

 at the distance of a foot or fifteen inches from each other, 



8 



