Notes and Gleanings. 243 



diameter, and have not yet stopped growing. To allow these vines room, I must 

 take out some others. 



Even the lona is now beginning to show itself a vigorous and almost ram- 

 pant vine, demanding plenty of room. I say iiow, because the feeble little twigs 

 sold and bought three or four years ago as lona vines have needed three or four 

 years of elaborate coaxing to get them to show the true character of the variety. 

 I have lonas that have made this summer a growth rivalling that of the Dianas, 

 their next neighbors on the trellis. 



Tiie Hartford Prolific, Clinton, Rogers's 19, Taylor, Franklin, Logan, and 

 Creveimg are all good growers, and some extremely vigoi'ous. No system of 

 pruning without the exercise of the utmost vigilance will keep the Clinton, for 

 example, within any reasonable limits. All these varieties, it seems to me, need 

 quite as much room as the Concord. If any exception must be made to the 

 general rule we are laying down, and if any one vine must be planted close, 

 probably three growers out of four would declare the Delaware to be the kind. 

 But is this really so .'' Is the Delaware, under favorable circumstances and in a 

 suitable soil, the poor, weak invalid that so many consider it ? I have had Dela- 

 warcs, to be sure, that have stood still for years, gaining nothing, and losing 

 nothing ; and again I have a Delaware that to-day (Aug. 10) can sliow vigorous 

 canes of this season's growth ten feet and more long, and still growing. 



This seems to show that even Delaware vines may be profitably planted in 

 some soils very far apart, and yet fill up the trellises. 



Reviewing the whole matter, and judging from my little experience with a few 

 hundred vines, knowing how rapidly tiie vines occupy and fill a trellis, and 

 knowing too, by trial, how unsatisfactory it is to be compelled to take out and 

 reset old vines, I must say, that, in planting a new vineyard, I would have at 

 icast twelve feet between the vines ; and perhaps I should even insist on fifteen. 

 I do not know any arguments that can have much weight on the other side, or 

 in favor of planting more than five hundred vines to the acre. 



One word in regard to training. I do not want to mystify the readers of the 

 Journal with any new theory on this befogged subject, but simply to mention a 

 fact or two. I have numerous vines trained as regular as the pictures in Fuller's 

 Manual, Rogers's 19 and 15, Concords, Dianas, and others ; but, although they 

 are very fine to behold, they do not give more than one-quarter of the fruit I 

 have a right to expect from vines of their size and age. The reason of this, 

 I believe, is to be looked for in a radical fault of the system. That is this : 

 With all our pinching and summer pruning, we do not succeed in making the 

 two lower buds on the upright canes so strong and vigorous as the next three 

 or four above ; and these two lower buds, on the recognized system of pruning, 

 are our sole dependence for the next year's crop. We cut oflf and throw awar 

 the best and strongest buds, and leave the two which are really much weaker 

 than the higher ones. 



Anyway, I am so much discouraged by the results of close pruning, that, this 

 fall, I intend either to leave three buds on every spur, or else cut every other one 

 down to one bud, and leave the alternate canes at least six buds long. I expect 

 in this way to get an amount of fruit better proportioned to the strength of the vine. 



