GENERAL AUTUMNAL PRUNING. 123 



CHAPTER XIIT. 



GENERAL AUTUMNAL PRUNING. 



Many reasons of a decisive nature point out the 

 autumn as the proper season for pruning the vine. 

 When, by judicious management, the branches of a 

 vine are kept within a small compass, its vegetative 

 powers become exceedingly vigorous; and the quan- 

 tity of superabundant wood that is necessary to be 

 cut out at the close of every season, being, in gen- 

 eral, very great in proportion to that which is retained, 

 the number of channels for the future ascent of the 

 sap becomes, after the general pruning, proper tionably 

 limited. In consequence of this, the sap acquires, at 

 its rising, a corresponding increase of strength and 

 velocity ; and unless the vine be pruned early in the 

 autumn, in order that the utmost possible period of 

 time may intervene, to harden the extremities and 

 such other parts of the branches as the pruning knife 

 has passed over, previously to the ascent of the sap 

 in the following spring, the sap, at its rising, will 

 burst through the wounds, and the vine^will bleed 

 profusely at all points. To guard against the occur- 

 rence of this very injurious casualty, there is no other 

 way than to prune at the earliest period possible in 

 the autunm. 



The sooner, also, that the vine is pruned in the fall 

 of the year, the earlier will its buds unfold in the 

 ensuing spring ; the cause of which may be thus 

 explained. The buds, from their first development, 

 are endowed with the power of attracting a sufficient 

 quantity of the juices of the plant, to nourish them, 

 and to promote their growth. But this power, al- 

 though it gradually increases with their growth, is 

 held in subjection throughout the summer, by a simi- 

 lar, but superior power, possessed by the fruit, which 

 in an extraordinary degree diverts the fluids of the 



