22 PRESENT METHOD OF CULTIVATING 



SO universally esteemed as the grape, should have re- 

 mained stationary, in respect to any improvement in 

 its mode of culture. 



I suspect, however, that the force of custom and 

 example will be found amongst the chief operating 

 causes. Scarcely any person, when planting vines 

 against his premises, ever thinks of setting apart for 

 any one to be trained on, a less space of walling than 

 a hundred and fifty, or two hundred square feet, see- 

 ing that the universal practice is to suffer a single 

 vine to cover, as quickly as possible, the entire surface 

 of one side of a house or building, or a large portion 

 of that of a garden wall. And this seems to be done 

 under the idea, that the more wood there is in a vine, 

 the more grapes it will produce, or that the one will 

 be in proportion to the other. It happens, however, 

 that the fact is precisely the reverse. If a vine be 

 suffered to make a large quantity of wood, it will 

 bear but little fruit; if it produce good crops of fruit, 

 it will make but little wood; the one checks the 

 other. To permit a vine, therefore, to make a great 

 quantity of wood, under the idea of getting thereby a 

 great quantity of grapes, is completely grasping at the 

 substance, and catching the shadow. 



Another reason why the method of cultivating the 

 vine on open walls has remained stationary, may be 

 found in the fact, that in the gardens of the rich, 

 where professed gardeners are kept, grapes on vines 

 of this description are but seldom grown to any ex- 

 tent, a sufficient quantity for the table being brought 

 to perfection under glass. Hence one of the principal 

 sources from which improved modes of culture are, in 

 general, derived, is thus closed, and the routine of 

 management of this most valuable fruit thereby con- 

 signed to the chances of empirical practice. 



The grand parent error which prevails universally 

 in the cultivation of the vine on open walls, lies in 

 the method of pruning usually adopted, and this is, 

 undoubtedly, the consequence of the nature of the 



