318 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



" 4. Therefore, if a necessity exists for taking off a part of the 

 leaves of a tree, a part of its fruit should also be destroyed. 



"5. But although a tree may be able to ripen all the fruit 

 which it shows, yet such fruit will never be so large nor so 

 sweet, under equal circumstances, as if a part of it is removed, 

 because a tree only forms a certain amount of secretions, and 

 if those secretions are divided among twenty fruits instead of 

 ten, each fruit will in the former case have but half the 

 amount of nutrition which it would have received in the latter 

 case. 



" G. The period of ripening in fruit will be accelerated by an 

 abundance of foliage, and retarded by a scanty foliage." 



" It is a mistake to imagine that the sun must shine on the 

 bunches of grapes in order to ripen them. Nature intended no 

 such thing ; on the contrary, it is evident that vines naturally 

 bear their fruit in such a way as to screen it from the sun, and 

 man is most unwise when he rashly interferes with this inten- 

 tion ; what is wanted is the full exposure of the leaves to the 

 sun ; they will prepare the nutriment of the grape — they will 

 feed it and nurse it, and eventually rear it up into succulence 

 and lusciousness." 



If in early winter or spring too much wood has been left upon 

 the vines, and too many shoots have been suffered to grow, 

 these may be cut out in July close down to the point from 

 whence they start, taking off the whole branch, fruit and leaves. 

 When the branches in autumn are beginning to slacken in their 

 power of lengthening, it is then right to stop the shoots by 

 pinching off their ends, because according to Lindley, newly 

 formed leaves late in autumn " have little time to do more than 

 organize themselves, which must take place at the expense of 

 matter forming in the other leaves." 



Pruning. — We find that the best time to prune the Isabella 

 grape is immediately upon the fall of the leaves in autumn. 



Autumn stopping of the vine shoots is therefore not only 

 unobjectionable but advantageous ; for the leaves that remain 

 after that operation will then direct all their energy to the per- 

 fection of the grapes. We have abandoned the old practice of 



