140 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



fruit from top to bottom, would find in practice, that their 

 theory, although correct, could not be well followed with profit ; 

 and therefore we recommend summer pruning properly per- 

 formed, as being a very important part of the art of cultivating 

 the grape with success ; and this now carries us back to our 

 vine, which has been regularly pruned every year in the fall, 

 but has now arrived to the state, when it is about to need sum- 

 mer pruning. The uprights, if strong, will now begin to push 

 shoots from the buds along their side, each of these shoots will 

 probably have from one to four bunches of fruit, but we sliould 

 not allow more than two upon the stronger and but one on the 

 more feeble shoots to remain, or if we take off from every other, 

 or alternate shoot, the vine will be the better for it. 



As the season advances, we shall now notice that the shoots 

 near the top of the uprights push much stronger than those 

 below, and should be pinched off, leaving two or three leaves 

 beyond the bunch of fruit, or blossom. Those at the lower 

 part can be left to grow a few weeks longer, thereby gaining 

 strength ; after this they can be cut back to a few leaves — say 

 three beyond the fruit. Now, if the vine had been allowed to 

 take its natural course, we begin to see the difficulty ; — two or 

 three of the upper buds, on the uprights, would have taken 

 the whole strength of the vine from the lower ones, and grown 

 perhaps ten or twenty feet, and which we should have been 

 obliged again to cut off; but by the other mode, tlie sap was 

 equalized over the whole vine, each shoot getting its fair sup- 

 ply, and the lower ones consequently stronger, and with better 

 and larger foliage to feed its fruit, than if the vine had taken 

 its natural course. The pruning of large established vines 

 should be done soon after the fall of the leaf, previous to laying 

 them down. By pruning at this period (say November,) the 

 sap collected by the roots stimulates the buds, which will cause 

 them to push earlier in the following spring — a matter of im- 

 portance where the summers are short. 



The only course to pursue with old vines that have been 

 neglected, is to choose branches containing the best and ripest 

 wood, cutting back all side shoots to one or two buds, and 

 leaving three or four feet, more or less, of the new wood upon 

 the end of the branch ; these branches, after being shortened 

 and trimmed, must now be laid along the trellis, eighteen or 



