78 ON THE PRUNING OF VINES. 



ous growth and under judicious management, will annu- 

 ally produce a much greater number of buds, that 

 would bear fruit in the following year, if retained, than 

 it can possibly bring to perfection. To get rid, there- 

 fore, of all this useless and superabundant wood, the 

 operation of pruning must be resorted to ; and as the 

 excess is very great, the pruning-knife must be exer- 

 cised in a correspondingly severe manner, in order to 

 restore the balance betwixt the roots and the branches. 

 From these considerations it follows, that the judicious 

 pruning of a vine is one of the most important points 

 of culture throughout the whole routine of its manage- 

 ment. 



There are three methods of pruning vines in practice 

 among gardeners ; namely, long pruning, spur-pruning, 

 and the fan or fruit-tree method. The first mentioned 

 is that which will hereafter be shewn to be the most 

 eligible method of pruning a vine, which, with respect 

 to this point of culture, requires to be treated very dif- 

 ferently to every other description of fruit-tree cultiva- 

 ted in this country. Many elaborate directions on this 

 subject have been given by writers on gardening, but 

 these being, in general, based upon no definite principle, 

 cannot with any degree of certainty be reduced to 

 practice. The truth is, that, although the fertility of 

 a vine depends in a great measure on the manner in 

 which it is pruned from time to time, and that, for va- 

 rious reasons, the operation may be supposed by those 

 who are unacquainted with the nature of the plant, to 

 be intricate, and to require a considerable portion of 

 skill, yet the contrary is the fact ; for, if the principle 

 on which it is to be performed be carefully kept in view, 

 the whole art of pruning a vine lies in a nut-shell. 



In order to render this art as clear as possible, the 

 reasons on which it is founded require to be distinctly 

 shewn. For this purpose it is necessary to make an 



