GRAPE VINES ON OPEN WALLS. 25 



buds each, leaving, perhaps, twenty in the whole. 

 Summer comes, and the vine having been seriously 

 crippled by the premature ripening of fruit in the pre- 

 ceding year, and having now twenty shoots to supply 

 with nourishment instead of two or three, the sap is 

 so diminished in quantity, and distributed also through 

 so many channels, that it is incapable of forming an 

 inch of really good bearing, wood. The shoots protrude, 

 and though small, produce a great mass of foliage ; 

 the evaporation from this being far too great for its 

 loss to be supplied by the roots, a languid circulation 

 of the juices of the plant takes place, and it receives 

 thereby a most serious check in its growth. The re- 

 sult is, that, at the end of the season, no shoots larger 

 in size than that of a small wooden skewer are to be 

 seen, except at the extremities. 



The proper season arriving, the vine is again pruned, 

 and again eight or ten times as many buds are retained 

 as the plant can nourish. The same disproportionate 

 mass of foliage follows of course, and the same exhaust- 

 ing effects are produced on the vital powers of the 

 plant. No bearing-shoots are formed except at the 

 extremities, and these being retained at the autumnal 

 pruning, old blank wood begins rapidly to cover the 

 surface of the wall. The method of pruning, also, be- 

 ing in general what is called the spur method, tends 

 more than any other to the permanent retention of old 

 wood. And thus the vine commences its fruit-bearing 

 life under the most adverse circumstances. 



The same mode of culture being followed in yearly 

 succession, the vine quickly spreads over its allotted 

 space of walling, exceeding, perhaps, two hundred, or 

 even three hundred superficial feet. It then contains 

 a vast number of long and useless limbs, on which 

 may be seen scores of excrescences, dignified with the 

 name of -spurs, producing in the growing season a su- 



