24 PKESENT METHOD OF CULTIVATING 



cription of fruit tree whatever. The most severe man- 

 ner, indeed, in which that instrument is at any time 

 applied to other trees, is as nothing when compared 

 with that required by the vine. 



In the course of the growing season, a vine in a 

 healthy condition will make a quantity of bearing 

 wood sufficient to produce ten times as much fruit as 

 it can bring to maturity. When this fact is consider- 

 ed in connection with another, namely, that the wood 

 which bears fruit one year, never bears any after- 

 wards, and is therefore of no further use in that res- 

 pect, it will easily be seen to what a surprising ex- 

 tent the pruning knife must be used, to get rid of the 

 superabundant wood which the plant annually pro- 

 duces. But nine parts out of ten of the current! years' 

 shoots, and all those of the preceding year, if possible, 

 to be cut off and thrown away, is apparently so much 

 beyond all reasonable proportion, and the rules usually 

 observed in pruning other fruit-trees, that few persons 

 ever possess the courage to attempt it. And herein, 

 as remarked before, lies the capital error in the com- 

 mon method of managing the vine. 



A vine, in the third or fourth year of its growth, will 

 in general show a few bunches of grapes, and these 

 are usually suffered to remain and ripen, instead of 

 being plucked off as soon as they appear, having been 

 produced before the plant has sufficient strength to 

 mature them, without injury to its constitution. Al- 

 though the quantity be small, it inflicts a severe blow 

 on the vital energies of the vine, from the exhausting 

 nature of the process of maturation. At the proper 

 season the pruning knife is applied, but the operator 

 being in perfect ignorance as to whether the plant has 

 sufficient strength to ripen any fruit or not in the fol- 

 lowing year, looks at the young wood, and seeing four 

 or five good strong shoots, cuts them back to as many 



