22 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



on the remaining fourth. In order to awaken interest, the State 

 needed a sample vineyard, and a public teacher, as in France, 

 where one-fifth of the entire vine region is utilized in grape culture. 

 He exhibited pieces cf wire and rail from his trellis, showing its 

 simple construction and the facilities for attaching to and detach- 

 ing from it, the vines. He spoke of a horizontal or platform trellis 

 about two feet from the ground, with wires occupying all but a 

 two-feet walk, but he preferred the vertical one described in the 

 essay ; and hills of six, instead of hills containing three, or half the 

 number of vines, as by close planting he better controlled the 

 growth both of root and shoot. As for protection in winter the 

 single arm system best facilitates it ; the rest of the pruning — the 

 canes and spurs — is optional. A well developed bud on a long or 

 short spur will always fiuit if the wood is rightly grown. Mr. 

 Blanchard says he has raised clusters from sixteen to thirty ounces 

 in weight. Mr. Barnett had raised them as heavy as twenty 

 ounces, but a pound is large enough. He started on the two-armed 

 system, but could not lay the vines down, while the single arms 

 can be easily swung round and a little trash thrown over them. 

 Even perfectly ripened wood is better laid down, because if not 

 winter killed by exposure yet the buds make a better start iu 

 spring. He had lost buds and spurs on ripened wood by not lay- 

 ing down, and the expense was not five dollars per acre. The 

 vines should not be layered before they are long enough to reach 

 across to the hill, as it would otherwise produce confusion. All 

 shoots or suckers proceeding from the layered canes are cut ofi" in 

 hoeing, and all the prunings, leaves, etc., are placed in the trench. 

 Nothing is burned except for making smoke on frosty nights. 



Mr. Moore said that in his experience it made no difference with 

 regard to the vines whether he pruned early or late, but if he 

 pruned early the work was out of the way. Bleeding, if it does 

 no harm, does no good. Deep borders certainly make the fruit 

 later. Of two Isabellas which he planted, one in a one foot and 

 the other in a three feet trench, the fruit of the latter was two 

 weeks later. In this latitude we must get our grapes ripe in less 

 than a hundred days from blooming. His grapes did not bloom un- 

 til the 23d of June, and he commonly got grapes fit for market the 

 middle of September. Mr. Barnett thought grapes would not ripen 

 as early when trained on a building as on a trellis, but Mr. Moore 

 said they would, if the border was on the south side of the house. 



