174 THE CULTUEE OP THE GRAPE. 



pruning, l3ut, after experiment, I was convinced that the 

 vines are best let alone, as the leaves get so much injured by 

 storms and insects, that all that are left are needed for ripen- 

 ing the fruit. I therefore train up the growmg shoots to the 

 trellis, and as the side-shoots and stragglers push out, so as 

 to be in the way, I simply trim them off with a pair of hedge 

 shears. 



" I have been carrying out the plan I told you of last fall, — 

 the covering of the ground of my vineyard with tan, shavings, 

 and pine leaves, and the advantages expected to be derived 

 from it are as follows : that it will keep the weeds from grow- 

 ing, and save the necessity of ploughing ; it wiU prevent the 

 lower bunches of grapes from getting spattered with the 

 earth, when it rains, which has always been a serious trouble 

 when the earth was kept loose, by ploughing; it will keep the 

 earth cool, and prevent an early starting of the buds, which 

 sometimes causes serious loss from late frosts ; and, lastly, 

 I hope it may prove, in some degree, a guard against those 

 insects which breed in the ground, and are most formidable 

 enemies." Horace W. S. Cleveland. 



Oatlands, Burlington, 1848. 



In a subsequent letter, Mr. Cleveland writes : " We are 

 daily fighting rose-bugs, which made their appearance on the 

 twenty-fifth May, but in that part of the vineyard, the ground 

 of which I covered, very few are yet to be found, though they 

 have, heretofore, always been most numerous there." 



The fruit in the above vineyard is grown for the dessert. 

 The amount of twenty pounds per vine, where the plants are 

 so wide asunder, appears to me to be a small crop for vines 

 seven or eight years old, of the Isabella or Catawba varieties. 

 It is, unquestionably, a good plan to limit the plant to tliis 

 quantity when young, and no one can judge so well, what a 

 vine is capa1)le of producing, without injury, as the one having 

 it in charge. 



Culture of the Crrape in North Carolina. — The following 



