OF THE VINE, 29 



rendered more productive of fruit-buds than leaf-buds. 

 Shoots that are considerably less in size than those 

 which bear fruit in ordinary summers, will, after being 

 ripened in such a summer, produce fine grapes in the 

 following season ; it is next to impossible, therefore, to 

 prune a vine when all the shoots are thus well ripened, 

 so as not to bear a good crop of fruit in the ensuing 

 year. Indeed, a person blindfolded may then take a 

 common sickle, and chop away at a vine right and 

 left, and if he chance to leave any young wood at all 

 remaining, that wood will produce fruit, because nearly 

 every bud formed in such a summer becomes a fruil- 

 bud. In the following year, almost every vine, how- 

 ever injudiciously managed, will be seen loaded with 

 fruit, and the year is then called "a grape year." In 

 such years I have frequently seen vines groaning as it 

 were beneath their prodigious number of bunches, and 

 have, on such occasions, invariably pointed out to the 

 owners of them, the certainty of the plants being 

 crippled for many years to come, if the whole quantity 

 produced were suffered to remain and ripen ; but no 

 representation of this sort made by me to any one, 

 whether gardener or otherwise, ever had, in any in- 

 stance, the effect of causing the excess in the quantity 

 to be reduced, even by a single bunch. So deeply 

 rooted seems to be the belief, that because a vine 

 shows a greater number of bunches of grapes, it can 

 therefore ripen them. 



Many years ago, I was led to consider the necessity 

 of ascertaining the extent of the fruit-bearing powers 

 of vines, in order to insure their successful culture, by 

 founding thereon a system of pruning, which should be 

 simple in practice, and certain in its effects; being 

 based on the principle of proportioning the quantity of 

 bearing. wood retained at the autumnal pruning, to the 

 capability of their powers of maturation. For the 



