1893.] ESSAYS. 51 



up for six or eight years ; then we think the vine, is strong enough to 

 carry more fruit. But to do this we must have more leaves, for it 

 requires just so many leaves to grow a pound of fruit ; what that num- 

 ber is I have never been able to find out, but Nature knows, and she 

 will have her way; try to. over- fruit the vine and she will assert her 

 rights by giving you poor fruit, for it must be remembered that the 

 law of nature holds as true in the vegetable kingdom as in the animal, 

 and that her object in the growing of fruit is not to tickle the palate, 

 but to grow seeds, and thereby carry out one of the great laws of 

 Nature, that of reproduction. But man does not care for this abund- 

 ance of seeds; he would have larger fruit, more pulp, and better 

 flavor. To do this we must work in harmony with Nature, and while 

 we find that she cannot be cheated in her slightest wish, yet with care- 

 ful tact and skilful management she can be made to respond to your 

 bidding, and instead of two or three bushels of small, ill-flavored 

 grapes, we will have a few pounds of large, choice grapes. This is 

 accomplished by the severe trimming that we have described, and by a 

 system of thinning the fruit. You must first determine how many 

 pounds of grapes you think your vine is capable of carrying, and then 

 cut down to that number, or what you think will make that amount 

 when ripe. This requires no little practice. I have thinned a vine- 

 yard of 2^ acres to carry ten tons ; when they were picked they over- 

 run 500 pounds. I count up the bunches on a vine, then tell by the 

 size of the bunches how many I wish to leave, and cut off the rest. 

 In some cases I have removed as many as forty bunches from one 

 vine. To secure more leaves we grow two arms instead of one, run- 

 ning them on the same wires in opposite directions, and treating them 

 the same in every respect ; only we have two canes to grow in the 

 summer, and two to trim oft" in the fall. This is the method followed 

 by us at the present time, with the strong-growing native grapes. In 

 the case of the Delaware it is somewhat different ; here we intend to 

 gi'ow four arms, two on the upper and two on the second wire, 3 feet 

 long. As the canes of the Delaware are shorter jointed than those of 

 the Concord, Worden, or in fact any of the Labrusca seedlings that 

 we are acc^uainted with, it becomes necessary, in order to secure the 

 proper amount of foliage, to leave the canes longer before pinching, — 

 say as many as nine leaves to a shoot. 



Diseases. The grape is subject to many enemies, both of the ani- 

 mal and vegetable kingdom. Let us first look at those of the animal. 

 In the early spring, when the bud first begins to swell, and before the 

 first tiny leaf unfolds, the advance guard appears and throws out its 



