472 [ THE VINE. 



from cuttings, and although it is hardly ever practised by 

 our gardeners it deserves to be more widely known, as 

 it furnishes excellent rooted plants for planting in the 

 vineyard, or for filling up gaps, and their use instead of 

 cuttings will certainly reduce by at least one year the 

 time required by the vine to reach bearing condition 



By selecting for cuttings, layers or scions, canes 

 only from those vines which have fruited regularly and 

 abundantly, and have produced fine bunches of grapes, 

 it is possible to bring about an improvement in the type 

 of the vine which it is intended to propagate, and this 

 method of selection is often adopted with very good 

 results by the best viticulturists on the continent. There- 

 fore those canes which have produced a number of line 

 bunches, and are usually pruned off in the following 

 winter, make very desirable cuttings or layers, and 

 should be preferred to all others as they are sure to 

 develop into fruitful vines. 



PROPAGATION BY GRAFTING. The vine is so easily 

 propagated by cuttings or layers that grafting was rarely 

 resorted to by the European vine-growers, except when 

 it was desired to transform a mixed plantation into 

 one of uniform quality, or to change the nature or 

 quality of a long established vine without having to 

 lose more than one year's crop. In this Island we 

 were still until lately in this happy condition, but the 

 spread of Phylloxera has changed all that, and now- 

 adays grafting is the basis on which the old vineyards 

 are being reconstituted, and therefore forms a really 

 integral and highly important part of modern viti- 

 culture. Reference is made only to grafting, as the 

 operation of budding is rarely performed on the vine, 

 although the vine can be budded almost as well as other 

 plants. Budding may be of two types green or herbaceotis 

 budding and dry or woody buddin. The first may be 

 performed from May to June or July, and consists in the 



