544 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



ject were nothing but luxuriant and wide-spread growth of wood and leaves. 

 Instead of this, every boy might learn, in some small treatise, highly proper for 

 a country school-book, tliat the cultivator of the vine must or ought to study its 

 fruit-hearing powers, the manner of propagating, by cuttings and by layers, and 

 of pruning — the best aspect, soil and manure, &c. 



i; In England, one of the most popular writers and practical ujo-nerons has made 

 a series of experiments based on the principle of proportioning the quantity of 

 bearing-wood, retained at the autumn pruning, to the capability of the vine to 

 mature its fruit. The results of the experiments were carefully noted from year 

 to year, and the principle established was that the capability of the vines was in 

 direct proportion to the circumference of their respective stems. On the basis 

 of all these observations, Hoare, in his Treatise on the Grape-Vine, lays down 

 the following 



Scale of the greatest quantity of grapes which any vine can perfectly mature in 



proportion to the circumference of its stem, measured just above the ground. 



Circicmference. Pounds. Circumference. Founds. Circumference. Pounds. 



3 inches 5 Clinches 30 8 inches 55 



3i 10 6 35 8i 60 



4 15 61 40 9 65 



41 20 7 45 91 70 



5^ 25 71 50 10^ 75 



The author says he had no opportunity of testing the rule on vines larger than 

 ten inches in circumference ; and, finally, he adds that with respect to the num- 

 ber of buds that are necessary to be left at the autumnal pruning to produce any 

 given weight of fruit, he has found it to be a good general rule, applicable to all 

 those kinds of grapes usually cultivated on an open wall, to consider every bud 

 (rejecting the two bottom ones on each shoot) as equal to the production of half 

 a pound weight of fruit — that is, if the stem of the vine be five inches in girth, 

 its capability is equal to the maturation of 25 pounds weight of grapes, and 

 therefore the number of buds to remain after pruning will be fifty. But he re- 

 fers, doubtless, to vines that have been well and carefully reared. 



The twelve kinds of grapes he recommends as most suitable for culture on 

 open walls, are Black Hamhurgh, Black Prince, Esperiore, Black Muscadine^ 

 Miller'' s Burgundy, Claret Grape, Black frontignac. Grizzly Frontignac, 

 'White Muscadine, Malmsey Muscadine, Whit,e Sivcetivater. But young begin- 

 ners and people in the country generally, would do well to confine their atten- 

 tion to the Cataivha, the Isabella and the Sweetwater, and to see what may be 

 made of native grapes, yet to be tamed and meliorated. The same results may 

 not be reached, precisely, with us ; we merely give this sketch to let the young 

 agriculturist see that there are principles to be sought in everything, and he 

 should regard as a flagrant indignity and insult to his profession any insinuation 

 that it is not a business of Art and Science as well as building and navigating a 

 ship. But perhaps the young reader is content to consider his farm in the light 

 of a ship, and to go himself as a common sailor before the mast ? If so, why all 

 we have farther to say is, that he must be left to his fate — Quisque suos patimur 

 manes — " Each has his fate, and bears the lot he drew." And the lot of all such 

 drones is, like that of agriculturists generally, to be saddled and bridled and 

 ridden by any demagogue partisan who can first get his foot in the stirrup. In 

 matters of public policy, and their real bearing on the landed interest, farmers 

 rarely inquire — rarely think for themselves. Their party faith, once pinned on 

 their sleeves by some leader, who is himself led by some higher leader — all in 

 search of office, big and little — there it sticks forever. In politics, as well as 



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