TIME OF PRUNING VINES. 297 



will be sure to have it done ; but it is entirely immaterial 

 whether you prune them one time or another up to the time 

 of commencinsT o:roM^th. 



There is another very foolish direction given, and that is, 

 that you must prune your trees or vines at a time when the 

 wood is not frozen. It makes no possible difference whether 

 the wood is frozen or thawed. It is all sheer nonsense, this 

 idea that gets into the public prints and is perpetuated with- 

 out any rhyme or reason. The vines, to be sure, if pruned 

 in the spring, will bleed ; there are two or three weeks in 

 which the grape-vine bleeds from a recent cut ; but they will 

 stop bleeding ; they will all begin to bleed about the same day 

 and stop about the same day, and, as far as I can see, it makes 

 no possible diflerence whether you prune them at one time or 

 another. This experiment of mine was conclusive to me, and 

 I have not gone any farther in that direction. I have pruned 

 a whole trellis, and there would be a running stream of sap, 

 but in a few days that would dry np, and the vines started just 

 as early and made just as much and as strong wood and carried 

 just as large a crop the next year as any others. Now, do not 

 sa}^ " It makes no diflerence, and therefore I will not prune my 

 vines now, but wait until next June " — and then wait. That 

 won't do. I supposed that cutting off the wood after the 

 shoots had made the progress they would by that time, would 

 check the growth of the vine, and I have now no doubt that 

 would be the case with a tree and with grape-vines grown 

 under some circumstances. If I prune a tree severely just 

 after it has leaved out, as a general thing it will not make any 

 growth that year ; but the pruning of a grape-vine grown as 

 here directed is so severe that there is still a preponderance 

 of roots to make it up. I should not want to prune a vine 

 after it had commenced leaving out, but up to that period one 

 time is as good as another. 



In regard to the summer pruning of the tops of the vines, 

 I will sa}^ that I think it has a tendency to arrest the elonga- 

 tion of the roots and keep them more at home. If you allow 

 the tops to extend from year to year without pruning, the 

 probability is that your roots will be, not in a compact collec- 

 tion, but merely one or two roots of great length. I have 

 not tried it to see what the result would be. There is a fal- 



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