20 MASSACIIUSKTTS TTORTICULTITRAL SOCIETY. 



J. M. Merrick, Jr.,* bad recommended to plant grape vines, 

 twelve to fifteen feet apart every way, bnt Mr. Barnctt could not 

 concur in this, because the vines while young will run too much to 

 wood, and Mr. IMorrick found it so, for in the same article lie com- 

 plained that he did not get one-fourth the fruit he should, while 

 Mr. Harnett pinched off two-thirds from his as surplus clusters. 



The plan of close planting and collecting six together is an in- 

 novation, but when it is followed and the roots confined to the 

 vine bed by root pruning, the vines are under control. He pinched 

 them once during the season, and after that they needed little 

 more pruning ; none, if the ej'cs beyond the cluster were dug out 

 or blinded. The small fibrous roots were mostly within six inches 

 of the surface, where surface fertilizers readily reach them. He 

 put muck at the bottom of the beds, and after tliat old turf, spent 

 lime, horn piths, etc., as stated in the essay. Thou, after the vines 

 are layered across and into hills, all the grape trimmings and other 

 refuse were put in to fill the bed up as high as the sides of it. 



Mr. Hovey said that bringing the vines across the whole 

 breadth of the trench, afforded more exposure to the sun. Mr. 

 Barnett's plan was the same as Du Breuil's system of cordon train- 

 ing, and the old Thomer^^ system, under which the grapes were 

 excellent because the roots were exposed to the sun. 



Ml". Barnett said that William Saunders, of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, with his brother, who is also good 

 authority, said, when they visited his grounds, that he would raise 

 very large and fine clusters by the method pursued. He would 

 plant grapes where you can roast the roots, and sun and air the 

 tops. He had laid the tops down and carried them under ground to 

 buildings, as described in the essay. Dr. Frederick Mohr, one of 

 the best authorities in Germany, a friend of and co-worker with 

 Liebig, says that the sun eliminates oxj'gen from the leaves, leav- 

 ing carbon and water ; and that, without this action, there ai'e no 

 rich products stored up in the vine. The nourishment is taken by 

 the root and conducted to the leaf, where the carbonic acid is de- 

 composed by the sun acting on the leaf, eliminating oxygen and 

 leaving hydrates of carbon, such as grape sugar, starch, woody 

 fibre, and the other rich products of the vine, so that the root, the 

 leaf, and the sun must all work together to perfect the crop. 



* Tiltou's Journal of Horticulture, Vol. IV, pp. 242—244. 



