108 WEEKLY CALENDARIAL REGISTER. 



air directly through the bunches, and for the admis- 

 sion of the solar heat to all the innermost berries. 

 This will be found necessary to ensure an equal de- 

 gree of maturity and flavor to all the berries of a 

 bunch. 



This thinning of the berries is one of the most ne- 

 cessary, and most beneficial operations, in the whole 

 culture of the vine. No grapes can be produced fit 

 for the table Avithout it. It increases the size of the 

 berries, improves their flavor, hastens the period of 

 their ripenmg, by preventing their clustering, enables 

 a vine to mature a much greater weight of fruit, and 

 counteracts, in a considerable degree, those exhaust- 

 ing effects which the perfecting of it would otherwise 

 produce on the vital energies of the plant. It is a 

 species of pruning, indeed, and may not improperly 

 be called pruning of the fruit, in contradistinction to 

 the pruning of the wood. To form a proper estimate 

 of the advantages of thinning the berries, it must be 

 remembered, that during the spring of the year, and 

 until the fruit has blossomed, and is fairly set, the vine 

 has been emitting its shoots, principally by the aid of 

 sap generated in it during the preceding year. In 

 doing this, its vital energies have not been taxed in the 

 slightest degree ; for, if it had emitted a hundred shoots, 

 and every shoot were a hundred feet long, the vine 

 Avould not only not be weakened by them, but such 

 shoots would form a certain index to its increased 

 strength and vigor, created by a corresponding exten- 

 sion of its roots. But far different is the case with 

 respect to the production of the fruit, the perfecting 

 of which, from the exhaustion it occasions to the 

 vegetative powers of the plant, may be properly de- 

 signated as a task. Other fruit trees are endowed 

 with the faculty of throwing off', to a considerable ex- 

 tent, any excess of fruit which they may show at the 

 commencement of the season, before its size is such 

 as to draw on their vital energies, but no such faculty 

 is possessed by the vine. The absence of this, there- 

 fore, must be remedied by the cultivator, on whose 



