Girdling of Trees. 291 



Careful vineyardists are able to continue the prac- 

 tice year after year without apparent injury to the 

 vine. The girdling is done when the grapes are 

 about the size of peas, and a section of bark about 

 an inch wide is entirely removed from the cane. A 

 gain in earliness of a week to ten days may be 

 secured by the process, but it is commonly believed 

 that the quality of the better grapes is injured. As 

 a matter of practice, only the very earliest varieties 

 of grapes are girdled or ringed for commercial pur- 

 poses ; and it is doubtful if the practice is to be 

 commended. 



Apples and other fruit trees are sometimes ringed 

 to set them into bearing. "Many orchards develop 

 a habit of redundant wood -bearing, and these are 

 often thrown into fruiting by some check to the 

 trees, as seeding down, girdling, and the like. 

 Probably every orchardist has observed that the at- 

 tacks of borers sometimes cause trees to bear. Tt 

 is an old maxim that checking growth induces fruit- 

 fulness. This is the explanation of the fact that 

 driving nails into plum and peach trees sometimes 

 sets the trees to bearing, and also of the similar in- 

 fluence exerted by a label wire which has cut into the 

 bark, or of a partial break in a branch. Girdling or 

 ringing to set trees into bearing is an old and well- 

 known practice. It is not to be advised as a general 

 resort, but I should not hesitate to employ it upon 

 one or two of the minor branches of an unprofitable 

 tree for the purpose of determining if the tree needs 

 a check. I saw a Baldwin tree this year in which 



