SECRETARY'S REPORT. 241 



the whole difference between getthig your crop ripe or losing 

 it, and the extreme difference, in time of ripening tlie crop, 

 between the feeble vine from the hot-house and the strong 

 one from the nursery-bed, will be two weeks. The difference 

 between the average of vines from the nursery, even, will be in 

 the same vineyard row, sometimes ill time one week, and, in 

 amount of crop one-third. The best vines, then, will give crops 

 which will vary both in quantity and season ; how unwise it 

 must be, then, to accept those which are not only not the best, 

 but are positively the worst and feeblest. 



Propagators say, indeed, that any natural feebleness in these 

 weak cuttings is overcome by the skill of the cultivator and the 

 stimulus of long-continued heat, and the longer season, — winter 

 in the hot-house and the open ground in summer, — which they 

 have to grow in ; but we believe that vines weakened by this 

 excessive propagation, do never attain their proper vigor, and 

 we know of some, which, after five years' cultivation, have not 

 yet shown fruit, although carefully nursed. In no other way 

 can we account for the discrepancy in the statements in regard to 

 some of our new grapes ; some growing strong, while others of 

 the same kind do hardly grow at all, as has happened in our 

 experience. It is not uncommon for propagators, who want to 

 get up a stock of some new grape at the earliest possible 

 moment, to layer the growing wood of the young vine, — itself 

 from a single bud, — and to get, from every eye of this green and 

 growing wood, with aid of heat and moisture, a new vine. 

 Now nature lays up, in the internodes or spaces between the 

 buds of the grape, organizable matter to feed the bud in the 

 spring when it first .begins to grow. Tbis organizable matter 

 feeds in the same way the bud which grows from the cutting, 

 and the stronger the cutting, the more vigorous will be the 

 growing shoot and the roots which are formed from its base, 

 and those which grow from the lower buds, so we get two or 

 three systems of roots from the two or three buds which the 

 cutting contains ; the top grows with vigor, the wood gets its 

 ^^ development early in the season, ripens perfectly, and, when 



planted out, the vine grows with vigor and comes up to its 

 proper type and the normal condition of the kind to which it 

 belongs. 



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