ON THE PRUNING OF VINES. 71 



are to remain, to the capacity of the plant for the 

 maturation of its next crop of fruit, and for the pro- 

 duction of future bearing- wood. The necessity for 

 this operation will appear evident when it is consid- 

 ered; Jirst^ that the shoots of a vine which bear fruit 

 one year, never bear any afterwards; — secondly^ that 

 those parts of the shoots that grow in the latter part 

 of the summer, are not sufticiently ripened to produce 

 fruit; — thirdly^ that a great number of shoots, in- 

 cluding those that push from the bases of the buds, 

 and which are thence called lateral or side shoots, are 

 too small, and otherwise unfit to produce fruit; — 

 and, fourthly^ that a vine in vigorous growth and 

 under judicious management, will annually produce a 

 much greater number of buds, that would bear fruit 

 in the following year, if retained, than it can possibly 

 bring to perfection. To get rid, therefore, of all this 

 useless and superabundant wood, the operation of 

 pruning must be resorted to; and as the excess is 

 very great, the pruning knife must be exercised in a 

 correspondingly severe manner, in order to restore the 

 balance betwixt the roots and the branches. From 

 these considerations it follows, that the judicious 

 pruning of a vine is one of the most important points 

 of culture throughout the whole routine of its man- 

 agement. 



There are three methods of pruning vines, in prac- 

 tice amongst gardeners; namely, long pruning^ spiir- 

 pruning^ and the/rtM oy fruit-tree method. The first 

 mentioned is that which will hereafter be shown to 

 be the most eligible method of pruning a vine, which, 

 with respect to this point of cultiu'e, requires to be 

 treated very differently to every other description of 

 fruit-tree cultivated in this country. Many elaborate 

 directions on this subject have been given by writers 

 on gardening, but these being, in general, based upon 

 no definite principle, cannot with any degree of cer- 

 tainty be reduced to practice. The truth is, that 

 although the fertility of a vine depends in a great 

 measure on the manner in which it is pruned from 



