The Vines. Given the locality and the vineyard : from which vines 

 in this vineyard shall we take our cuttings ? This is the most impor- 

 tant question of all and that which is most generally neglected. It is 

 hardly necessary to say that no cuttings should be taken from vines 

 which have never produced a good crop. Some such vines exist in 

 nearly every vineyard. A few growers mark such vines and avoid 

 them when making cuttings. It would be better to graft them over or 

 dig them out. 



Instead of marking the poorest vines in order to avoid them, it is 

 better to mark the best vines in order to choose them when making cut- 

 tings. When the crop is ripe and still on the vines the vineyard should 

 be gone over carefully and a sufficient number of the best vines marked 

 to supply the amount of cuttings needed. Only vines showing health, 

 vigor and heavy crop of well-ripened grapes should be marked. A dab 

 of paint on the stake or the stem of the vine is perhaps the most con- 

 venient way of marking. 



While this will insure our cuttings coming only from vines which 

 are capable of producing a satisfactory crop, it omits one very impor- 

 tant factor the regularity of bearing. Some vines bear good crop 

 occasionally, or on alternate years. The ideal vine is one which bears 

 a good crop every year. This vine we can find only by keeping a con- 

 tinuous record of its performance. This can be done to some extent 

 by going over the vineyard every year just before the vintage and 

 marking every vine which has a good crop. At the end of four or five 

 years the vines which have borne a good crop every year will show four 

 or five marks, and these are the vines most likely to yield cuttings ca- 

 pable of producing a vineyard of ideal vines. 



To make this selection most effectively and quickly would require 

 a special vineyard for the purpose. A vineyard of pedigreed vines of 

 all our most desirable varieties would be a most valuable acquisition 

 for the State. Such a vineyard might be started with cuttings selected 

 in the way described, and each variety gradually brought up to its 

 highest possible bearing capacity, by grafting all the vines of each 

 variety with cuttings taken from the vine of that variety which had 

 shown the best and most regular bearing qualities during a term of 

 years. Twenty-five or thirty such vines of each variety would be suffi- 

 cient to maintain and improve the productiveness of all the vineyards 

 in the State if it were used to supply stock to nurserymen and other 

 growers of vine cuttings. This would make it unnecessary to abandon 

 many of the finest varieties of grapes, as has been done to a great ex- 

 tent lately. 



Part of the Vine. While any cutting from a good vine is probably 

 better than the best cutting from a poor vine, it is not a matter of in- 

 difference from what part of the vine the cuttings are taken. It. is a 

 well established fact known to all skilled pruners that certain buds on 

 a vine are much more likely to produce fruit than others. These buds 

 may be called, from analogy with similar bud on orchard trees, fruit 

 buds. The fruit buds of vines, unlike those of most orchard trees, are 



