102 THE AMERICAN GARDENER. [Chu.JK 



shoots to. You will want (See FIG. 2.) eight shoots 

 to come out to run horizontally, to be tied to these 

 bars. You must now, then, in winter, cut off your 

 vine, leaving eight buds, or joints. You see there 

 is a mark for this cut, at a, fig. 1. During summer 

 8 shoots will come, and. as they proceed on, they 

 must be tied with matting, or something soft, to the 

 bars. The whole vine, both ways included, is sup- 

 posed to go 16 feet ; but, if your tillage be good, 

 it will go much further, and then the ends must be 

 cut off in winter. Now, then, winter presents you 

 your vine as in fig. 2 ; and now you must prune, 

 which is the all-important part of the business. 

 Observe, and bear in mind, that little or no fruit 

 ever comes on a grape-vine, except on young shoots 

 that come out of wood of the last year. All the 

 four last year's shoots that you find in fig. 2, would 

 send out bearers ; but, if you suffer that, you will 

 have a great parcel of small wood, and little or no 

 fruit next year. Therefore, cut off 4 of the last 

 year's shoots, as at b. (Fig. 3.) leaving only one 

 bud. The four other shoots will send out a shoot 

 from every one of their buds, and, if the vine be 

 strong, there will be two bunches of grapes on each 

 of -these young shoots ; and, as the last year's shoots 

 are supposed to be each 8 feet long, and as there 

 generally is a bud at, or about, every half foot, 

 every last year's shoot will produce 32 bunches of 



rapes ; every vine 128 bunches ; and the 8 vines 

 12 ; and, possibly, nay, probably, so many pou?ids 

 of grapes ! Is this incredible ? Take, then, this 

 well known fact, that there is a grape vine, a single 

 vine, with only one stem, in the King of England's 

 Gardens at his palace of Hampton^ Court, which 

 has, for, perhaps, half a century, produced on an 

 average, annually, a ton of grapes; that is tc 



