PRUNING VINES. 39 



the base of the lateral shoot ; and I prefer a pair of 

 priming-scissors to a knife for the operation of pruning. 

 Those I use have a sort of back-action, and cut as 

 clean as a knife. My objection 



* J FIG. 6. 



to the knife is that, unless it is 

 used with care, the half-inch of 

 wood left beyond the bud is 

 often split by its action, and the 

 bud suffers in consequence ; but 

 this is a matter that care can 

 easily avoid. 



When vines are vigorous they 

 not unfrequently bleed copiously 

 when forcing commences, though 

 they may have been pruned 

 months before. This is a clear- 

 ly recognised evil, and many 

 compositions have been recom- 

 mended for preventing bleeding. 

 Nearly all these I have tried, and others that have 

 occurred to my own mind ; but none of them answered 

 the purpose, till this spring I discovered a styptic 

 which is so perfectly successful that I can, by its use, 

 prune a house of vines in March, dress the wounds with 

 it, and begin forcing the next day, without the loss 

 of a drop of sap. It is manufactured and sold by John 

 Young & Son, Dalkeith, and all seedsmen. 



Though the young wood be regularly cut back to one 

 eye, in the course of years the spurs will become long 

 and unsightly; and the best way to remedy this is to 

 cut down a rod annually, beginning at one end of the 

 house, running up a young rod in its stead till all have 



