130 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



My mode of pruning is as follows : As soon as the shoots in 

 spring have advanced so as to show the clusters of buds, I 

 pinch each one at one joint l)cyond the first cluster, unless the 

 second is of good size, in which case both are left, but never 

 more than two. All superfluous shoots and buds are rubbed 

 off. As growth progresses, I pinch a second, third, and some- 

 times a fourth time, according to the luxuriance of the vines, 

 after which every thing is left to grow at random. After the 

 fall of the leaf every thing is cut away, except those buds which 

 are wanted for the next season's fruiting. 



The ground has been fairly fed for crops of vegetables, &c., 

 but has received nothing especially for the vines, except the 

 horn waste before mentioned. The growth has been uniformly 

 too luxuriant, and the canes too long-jointed. This tendency I 

 hope to overcome by withholding stimulating manures, and 

 shall apply only those of the opposite character. 



Statement of W. G. Wyman. 

 The "Plantation of Native Grapes" which I offer for a 

 premium, consists of forty-seven vines, viz. : twenty-nine Con- 

 cord, six Diana, four Isabella, three Seedling, two Catawba, 

 one Rebecca, one Hartford Prolific, one Delaware. They were 

 set as follows, viz. : In the spring of 1857, one Concord, from 

 which all the Concord plants were obtained by layers, two 

 Diana, two Catawba, three Isabella, and three Seedling; in 

 1858, two Concord ; in 1859, two Diana, three Concord and 

 one Isabella; in 1860, eleven Concord, two Diana, one Rebecca, 

 one Hartford Prolific, and in 1801, twelve Concord and one 

 Delaware. Twenty-seven are in two rows twelve feet apart, 

 on the south side of a high, tight board fence, in my vegetable 

 garden. The plants are twelve feet apart in the rows. Between 

 the rows an under-drain was laid, varying from two and one- 

 half to three and one-half feet deep; trenches were dug for 

 the vines about twenty inches to two feet deep and three feet 

 wide, and filled with brush at the bottom, (mostly old wild 

 grape vines,) covered with bones, waste leather, old woollen 

 clothes, turf and good soil ; the vines set in the soil, without 

 other manure, and subsequently manured with ground bone, 

 super-phosphate of lime or aslies, each year until the present, 

 most of them not being manured at all this year, except as 



