ON THE TRAINING OF VINES. 97 



operation of it might, in some instances, be productive 

 of disappointment. 



I know of no exception to this rule, for procuring 

 the developement and formation of fruit-buds, except 

 in the case of a vine having been overcropped, or in 

 that of an exceedingly vigorous growth of the shoots, 

 the result of the soil being too highly manured. But 

 the former can never happen, if the quantity of fruit 

 borne by the vine be proportioned to its capacity of 

 maturation, agreeably to the scale given in the former 

 part of this work ; and the latter can be easily reme- 

 died by training the shoots in a curved direction. In- 

 deed, the principle of retarding the flow of the sap, by 

 curving or depressing the shoots, may be applied with 

 as much advantage to the training of the summer 

 shoots of a vine, as to that of the shoots grown in the 

 preceding year. For although by training the sum- 

 mer shoots in the manner before-mentioned, all the 

 buds developed will be fruit-buds, and the number and 

 size of their bunches be, in a great measure, regulated 

 by the duration and intensity of the solar rays they 

 enjoyed during their formation, yet the number, and 

 more especially the size, of the bunches of fruit pro- 

 duced from a bud, can, without doubt, be further in- 

 creased by the application of this principle. If a sum- 

 mer shoot, therefore, every time it is nailed throughout 

 the season, be bent or pointed in a different direction to 

 that in which it grew at the preceding nailing, the vig- 

 our of its growth will be checked, and the sap will im- 

 mediately accumulate, and expend itself in forming 

 round short-jointed wood, and in the developement of 

 the finest description of fruit-buds. This is the key 

 to the production of large bunches of fruit, which are 

 not the necessary consequence of very large-sized 

 bearing shoots, but rather of sap that has been accu- 



