98 THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



Fourth Year. 



The fourth year, follow the same directions for ventilating, 

 giving air, and watering the vines and the floor of the house 

 as heretofore. 



After the vines are secured to the trellis, and the shoots 

 are one or two inches long, rub out, from the spurs which 

 were cut close, all but one shoot ; this you must leave to grow 

 for future use ; do not allow it to bear fruit this season. 



If the vines are strong, and were not injured by overbear- 

 ing last year, you can now leave on each vine fifteen bunches, 

 that will weigh one pound each, to ripen this season ; let the 

 bunches be distributed, at proper distances, over the vine. 

 The leading cane should not be allowed to bear fruit until it 

 has become established at the length desired for permanent 

 use, when it can be fruited as well as the other shoots. Very 

 strong, healthy vines will often show, on this length of cane, 

 sixty to one hundred bunches ; and it requires some firmness, 

 in an inexperienced person, to cut out in this free manner.* 



* Grapes under glass, and in the open air, almost invariably do well the first and 

 second year of fruiting. This is undoubtedl}' to be attributed to the fresh soil having, 

 in its constituent parts, all the requisite ingredients. The cause of their bearing fruit 

 in a diminished degree after this may be, that some substance was supplied in a 

 small quantity, and has become exhausted, or, it may be that the vine has been too 

 highly excited by stimulating manures, given too freel}' at first, and not continued ; 

 but more frequently, I apprehend, by suffering the vine to mature too much fruit. 



Pruning.—" In your leading article, on the subject of the vineries at Bishop's 

 Stortford, you concluded by saying, that the vines there were pruned on Mr. Craw- 

 shay's system. [This is giving a new and improper name to an old sj'stem ; it has 

 long been in use in France, and is known as the close-spur system of pruning, its 

 proper appellation.] I presume, from that general allusion, that the system is well 

 imderstood by professional gardeners ; but I rather think it is not as universally 

 known as it would seem to deserve, if it can be proved to be certain and successful. 

 In all treatises I have read on pruning the \me, from Speechly downwards, I have 

 never met with any which has detailed this mode of treatment, or recommended its 

 adoption. I have heard it, in conversation, described as the ' walking-stick 

 system,' because its principle consists in giving very much that appearance to the 

 main stem, which is always preserved. At each autumnal pruning, the whole of the 

 new wood is cut off to within an eighth of an inch of the old stem. So small, in- 

 deed, is the spur left, that the growth of the wood of the following year nearl}' le\-els 

 it with the old wood. At the point of junction of this eighth of au inch with the stem, 

 one or more buds are developed, which, in the succeeding 3'ear, become the shoots 

 upon which the fruit is produced. The old fashioned grape-grower sees with dismay. 



