124 GENERAL AUTUMNAL PRUNING. 



plant, and appropriates them to its own growth and 

 maturation. As soon, however, as the fruit is ripened, 

 this power which it previously possessed becomes 

 nearly extinct, and the fluids of the plant are then 

 chiefly appropriated to the nourishment of the buds, 

 and to the growth of the roots and branches. Now, 

 as the great eftbrt of the vine in ripening its fruii is 

 made either before the autumnal equinox, or imme- 

 diately after it, while the sap is yet moving pretty 

 briskly ; if the vine be pruned shortly after that pe- 

 riod, the sap quickly accumulates in the shoots that 

 are retained, and the buds attracting it very power- 

 fully, rapidly advance in their growth and maturation. 

 They thus steal a march, as it were, on their next 

 year's vegetation. But if the •vine be pruned too 

 early^ before the motion of the sap is suflficiently 

 weakened, by the declining power of the sun, the 

 buds then feed themselves to repletion, and prema- 

 turely burst. Hence it follows, that the most advan- 

 tageous period for the general pruning of the vine 

 must, undoubtedly, be that point of time when the 

 sap can be made to accumulate in the buds in such 

 quantity as to increase them to their utmost possible 

 size, without bursting them. And this point of time 

 cannot with safety be considered as having arrived 

 till the first of October. A single branch of a mod- 

 erate-sized vine may be cut out or shortened as early 

 as the middle of September, but the whole vine can- 

 not be pruned, and its entire body of sap thereby sud- 

 denly checked in its motion, before the expiration of 

 that month, without incurring very great risk of 

 bursting the buds, independently, also, of giving to 

 the vital powers of the plant an injurious shock, by 

 performing such a severe operation prematurely. As 

 soon, however, as the month of October commences, 

 and the fruit is cut, the general pruning should be 

 done, and the buds, in consequence, increasing in 

 size by the accumulation of the sap. become thereby 

 endowed with a greater degree of vitality than they 

 would otherwise possess. They are thus enabled to 



