96 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



organizable matter which the roots continue to take up until 

 hard frost prevails, charges the wood and the buds, making 

 them to start with more vigor in the succeeding spring, and 

 perhaps increasing, to some extent, the size of the bunch. It 

 is safe, however, to prune at any time after the fall of the leaf 

 until the succeeding spring, avoiding to prune when the wood 

 is frozen, or so late in the spring that the vine will bleed, which 

 would be likely to happen at the beginning of April. 



PROPAGATION. 



No vineyard can be said to be complete until provision is 

 made for a supply of new plants to take tke place of those lost 

 by accident, or which prove weak or unproductive, (and if 

 weak they will be unproductive,) and to furnish vines for 

 planting new vineyards. We offer, therefore, the results of our 

 experience in this connection, in order that the beginner may 

 avoid loss of time and money through the purchase of vines 

 weakened by excessive propagation. 



It is the custom in wine countries to raise new plants only 

 from the best ripened wood of a bearing vine, and that which 

 ripens its fruit the earliest, and they maintain that, in this way, 

 they procure vines that bear earlier fruit than the parent vine, 

 as happens with seed-bearing plants, the precocity of which may 

 be increased by saving the earliest and best seed from year to 

 year. 



When the nurseryman has received a new grape, he naturally 

 desires to propagate it as fast as possible, he therefore raises his 

 new plants' from single eyes, and when these grow, propagates 

 again from these young and necessarily enfeebled vines. The 

 consequence is, the vines, weakened by this process, do not 

 ripen their fruit so early, nor grow with such vigor as vines 

 raised from cuttings of strong- wood from well-established vines. 

 The difference in the time of ripening will usually be about ten 

 or fifteen days, and the vines raised from cuttings of a foot or 

 more in length are much superior to these raised from single 

 eyes, because the greatly increased amount of organizable 

 matter in the cutting not only pushes tlie growing bud vvitli 

 greater vigor, but greatly increases the quantity of roots, while 

 the cutting, -usually grown in the open air, is really better 

 adapted to vineyard culture for that reason, being more hardy 



