290 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



these shoots bear but one chister apiece. The best time to 

 pinch the superfluous clusters ofi" is as quick as you can see 

 them ; as soon as you know they are there. It is just like 

 killing weeds. My custom is, when I pinch ofi" the point of 

 the shoot, to pinch off all the clusters but one. Sometimes, 

 the second cluster is the finest, but generally the one nearest 

 the arm is the best. I then have but twelve clusters ; if my 

 clusters are small, I leave more. 



Now, as to the size of these clusters. It may not perhaps 

 have been thought of particularly, but their size is already 

 determined for the next year; that is, the grape-crop for 

 1874 is already fixed, so far as the number of clusters and the 

 number of berries on a cluster is concerned, but they are only 

 in embryo ; the size of the individual berries is to be deter- 

 mined, of course, afterward, but the whole crop of next 

 season, so to speak, is bottled up in the buds, and anything 

 that you can do to them now does not influence the crop of 

 next year. There are a great many absurd notions about 

 this. A man having an apple-tree that had been barren for a 

 great number of years, applied a lot of oyster-shell lime in 

 the fall, and it bore an abundant crop the next year. Hence, 

 he said, that if oyster-shell lime was applied to an apple-tree, 

 it would make the tree bear, not knowing that his apple-crop 

 was virtually made the year previous, before he thought of 

 his oyster-shell lime. The crop was there ; it was simply 

 developed the next year. It is so with grapes ; but you can 

 tell the character of them almost as soon as they show. If 

 the clusters are large, do not leave so many of them ; if 

 small, leave more. If, in your judgment, they will Aveigh 

 about a third of a pound each, leave eighteen clusters ; if half 

 a pound each, leave twelve. 



At the same time you get this crop you are to look out for 

 the next year, and there is where grape-growers are espe- 

 cially likely to fail. They all get this crop, but they do not 

 get the next one. Everybody has success when his vines 

 are three or four years old, because they bear their first crop, 

 and there is no difficulty whatever in getting a large one ; the 

 difficulty is in getting the succeeding crop. That is provided 

 for in this way. Anywhere upon the main stem, where a 

 strong bud starts, the shoot arising from it is trained up and 



