SECRETARY'S REPORT. 73 



solid. No matter if your grape does not grow — and some kinds 

 will not — more than twelve inches in a season, still I would 

 pinch the terminal bud, that tlic others might be consolidated 

 and made robust. With rapid-growing vines, six feet of wood 

 would be made, perhaps ; still, you would pinch at every twelve 

 inches, so as to make sure of solid wood, and strong, well-devel- 

 oped buds. This brings you to the third year. In the third 

 year, you will cut back these laterals, these diagonal arms, to a 

 strong bud, though it take you back very near their base ; for 

 these arms are to remain in the future, and be the vine which 

 may continue, perhaps, for a century, if properly cared for ; for 

 the grape is one of the longest-lived of all fruits, if cultivated 

 with care. There are specimens in this country with a diameter 

 of trunk of twenty-four inches, and "which were believed by 

 Downing to be two thousand years old. You want to proceed, 

 therefore, as if your vine were to remain there forever ; you 

 want to make that wood solid and enduring; and, therefore, 

 you will cut back these diagonal arms at the end of the first 

 year of their growth to a strong bud and to solid wood, though 

 it take you very near their base. The next year, being the 

 third year from planting, the spur which you have left will give 

 you some fruit. You will have seen, probably, that your vines 

 are strong, well established, and capable of carrying a crop — a 

 light crop — the first crop. If they are weak, for any reason, 

 they should not be cropped that year, or ever, until they get 

 well established. But if well established the third year, you 

 may take your first crop ; and you may safely take, with the 

 Concord, for instance — which is the grape I have planted in 

 field culture, five pounds of grapes to the vine. The spurs will 

 usually set three bunches ; pinch the growing wood at the first 

 bud beyond the last bunch, and cut away one or two of the 

 bunches, leaving the strongest, so that the vine may not carry 

 more than five pounds. At the autumn pruning cut back the 

 first spur to three eyes, the second and third to one eye each, 

 and the fourth spur, which will be opposite to the first, to three 

 eyes. The spurs left with one eye each make your bearing 

 wood of next year. The spurs of three eyes, which bear this 

 year, will be cut back, at the end of the season, to one eye, to 

 make bearhig wood the next year for successive fruiting. By 



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