SECRETARY'S REPORT. 71 



touch them again that season, any further than to keep down 

 the weeds in the row. The reason for this is plain. All the 

 leaves which these branches contain help to make roots, do 

 make roots. The more foliage you have on your vine, the more 

 root you will have at the end of the season ; and since you will 

 in any event prune back closely at the end of the first year, I 

 would by no means pinch the growing shoots in the summer. 

 Your vine will then be left to run about upon the ground, and 

 to be blown about by the wind ; for every movement of the 

 branch facilitates the vegetable processes going on in the plant, 

 as has been found by experience ; and, in fact, writers on horti- 

 culture, in the magazines of this day, recommend this very 

 mode, which I have used for ten or twelve years, as the result of 

 my experience, and which I recommend to you as not only the 

 best way, but the one involving the least trouble. 



When you have got to the end of the first year, you want to 

 begin to shape the vine,'and therefore you cut it back to a 

 single stem, which you leave of greater or less length, accord- 

 ing to the strength of the stem. It should be not less than 

 twelve or fifteen inches from the ground, to facilitate culture 

 about the grape, the hoeing, weeding, &c. If you train upon 

 the espalier, your first wire will be eighteen or twenty inches 

 from the earth, which is low enough to lay out the lower or first 

 branches for fruiting ; and therefore you will leave your main 

 stem of that height. For training upon poles, twelve inches will 

 be enough. As this is always to be the main stem of the grape, 

 no other growth can be allowed from the bottom. From that 

 main stem you train your branches. If you prefer training on 

 poles, then two systems of pruning occur to you, the renewal 

 system and spur pruning. If spur pruning is to be adopted, 

 one pole is sufficient ; if the renewal system, two poles are 

 required, and you must train the wood alternately on one pole 

 and the other. The objection to the renewal system, in my 

 mind, is this : that on the long shoot, which you will leave, 

 although it may be covered with well-ripened buds, you are' not 

 sure of getting good bunches of fruit throughout the whole 

 length. The sap rushes to the end of the upright branch, and 

 pushes the buds there first. The bunches are largest there ; 

 the bunches below that point start later. I am aware that 

 when the root is large, and the vine has attained its utmost 



