78 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



extent of several feet. In places subject to early frost, training 

 the vine near the earth, horizontally, is a safe practice, and 

 where the air is particularly damp from any cause, training to 

 an upright stake or pole, to the height of ten or more feet, has 

 been found so obviously beneficial as to recommend this mode 

 to the attention of all engaged in the culture of the grape. This 

 last course is often beneficial, too. because, by the almost con- 

 stant motion of the pole caused by the wind, the fruit will be 

 protected from being scalded by the sun's rays, an injury to 

 which it is very liable in many situations, and also to an en- 

 couraging extent from the baneful influence of the mould. For 

 the same reason a common trellis, composed of rather flexible 

 materials, is to be preferred to one constructed of timber, so 

 firm as not to yield at all to the usual motions of the wind. 

 The best fruit ever obtained is that which grows upon vines 

 attached to the longest and most easily agitated limbs of 

 forest or cultivated trees. The principle involved in this last 

 observation applies with almost, or quite, as great force to other 

 fruits, and suggests a consideration of a practical nature in re- 

 lation to general pruning. 



A leading question in trimming is the comparative advan- 

 tages between heading in and thinning our. The committee 

 have been led to suppose that extremes here should be avoided. 

 If headed in too much, the tree and limbs will be moved but 

 slightly by the common winds. This will expose the bark on 

 the trunk and large branches to be burned, and the fruit scalded, 

 by our hot and dry summer sun. If thinning out be exclusively 

 adopted, the wind blowing upon the wide-spread branches is 

 apt to strain and split them, and often to loosen the bark, and 

 to bruise, if not to cause the fruit to fall. Grapes, being a 

 smaller fruit, will remain uninjured by an agitation which 

 would destroy the apple, pear, or any of the large and heavy 

 fruits, but still will often sufier if exposed to a violent motion. 

 Trees of almost any kind, where they can be spared, afford, so 

 to speak, the best trellis for vines, certainly, in cases where but 

 little labor can be devoted to them. 



But while the committee judge it well to make this state- 

 ment, in respect of methods of cultivation, they would, at the 



