DISEASES. 153 



or efficient drainage ; thorough and deep trenching or sub- 

 soil plowing, and not over-close planting, so that the air 

 may pass freely between and among the plants, in order 

 the better to drive off all superabundant atmospheric 

 moisture, and also enable the plants to exhale the over- 

 plus fluids with "which, at such times, they are surcharged. 

 For the same reason, where the vines are trained over 

 arbors, or on trellises, the branches ought not to be too 

 close, or the summer growth to become crowded. This 

 object is not to be gained, however, by plucking off the 

 leaves as some persons very ignorantly do, but by atten- 

 tive disbudding of all those shoots that will not be actually 

 wanted, in the early part of the season, or so soon as it 

 can be plainly seen which branches will produce the finest 

 fruit, and by laying them in, at pruning time, sufficiently 

 distant eighteen inches is near enough. In the grapery 

 we are not much troubled by this nuisance, except in 

 damp, ill-ventilated, or badly-glazed houses, which is an- 

 other proof that the cause is an excess of moisture, for it 

 is a common practice, when the fruit begins to color, to 

 use very little or no water in any form, consequently at 

 the critical period the grapes are in a drier atmosphere 

 and the absorbing foliage is prevented from inhaling any 

 more moisture than is necessary to suppport health. 

 Where the vines are planted and the fruit is found to be 

 subject to the affection, it will be well to drain deeply 

 between the rows in the fall, and when the ground is 

 forked over to apply a good dressing of fresh powdered 

 lime ; indeed a very confident opinion will not be much 

 hazarded by stating, that a well drained calcareous soil, in 

 an airy but not exposed situation, would be sure to give 

 grapes nearly, if not quite free from rot. 



Spot. The spot, although by some pe'rsons confounded 

 with the preceding disease, is certainly a different thing ; 



7* 



