GENERAL AUTUMNAL PRUNING. 125 



attract the sap at its rising with more power, and 

 consequently to expand themselves earlier than the 

 buds of a vine pruned later in the season ; and this is 

 an advantage not to be estimated lightly in a country 

 where the summers are barely long enough to ripen 

 the fruit. 



In addition to the foregoing reasons, others will 

 hereafter incidentally appear, in favor of early au- 

 tumnal pruning. 



In giving directions for the general pruning of the 

 vine, it is scarcely possible to lay down any rules for 

 the guidance of the pruner, except such as are of 

 general application. If the vine has been attended to 

 throughout the summer in the manner directed in the 

 Calendarial Register, there will be comparatively 

 little to do at the autumnal pruning. As vines, how- 

 ever, are managed in a great variety of ways, it ap- 

 pears necessary to give such directions as will apply 

 in a general manner to any vine, whatever may have 

 been the method in which it has been previously 

 pruned and trained. 



Before doing this, however, a few observations may 

 be made relative to vines that have been suffered to 

 cover a disproportionate extent of walling, and which 

 have, as a necessary consequence, a great number of 

 old, naked, and barren limbs. Vines of this descrip- 

 tion, when their leaves are shed, present a perfect 

 chaos of useless branches, the general appearance of 

 which bids defiance to anything like systematic 

 pruning. To give any directions, therefore, that can 

 be practically followed in the pruning of such vines, 

 is next to impossible; the only course that can be 

 recommended to be adopted, with respect to any vine, 

 that is in this state, is to cut it down to a complete 

 stump. By doing this the fruit will be only sacrificed 

 for one season, for the next year after this operation 

 has been performed, the vine will send forth an abun- 

 dant quantity of the finest description of bearing- 

 shoots, which, in the following year, will produce as 

 much fruit, with only a tenth part of the trouble in 

 11* 



