104 Vineyard Culture. 



a workman proceeds to make the necessary excavation. He 

 opens a hole the width of the spade, and the length of the 

 cutting, making it one spit deep. Fine, mellow soil is thrown 

 slanting toward the top, at the stake-end. The planter then 

 follows with his cuttings, in a bucket of puddle-water, to keep 

 them from drying. At each station he takes two cuttings, and 

 lays them so that their bases shall be separated the width of 

 the excavation, but their tops approximate at the stick. Soft 

 earth is thrown upon them, and tramped firmly with the foot, 

 beginning at the base of the cutting. As he approaches the 

 stick, the upper portion is bent into a vertical position at the 

 stake, and pressed firmly into its place. This end of the hole 

 is filled with mellow soil, and the head of the cutting is barely 

 covered, but the further portion is only half filled up, the ob- 

 ject being to secure the warming influence of the sun, to en- 

 courage the starting of the roots. 



If both cuttings grow, one of them may be removed the 

 next spring to fill a gap somewhere else, or the extra vine may 

 be destroyed, by cutting it off below the surface with the 

 pruning-knife, at any time.] 



The conclusion arrived at from the preceding, there- 

 fore, is : that in rich and somewhat moist soils, where 

 the crossettes easily take root, they are preferable, but 

 for dry soils the roots are the best. 



In some localities vine-dressers prefer, in all cases, 

 cuttings to the rooted plants, maintaining that they are 

 always more certain. This is owing, in most cases, to 

 the roots of the plants being very much injured, either 

 by being taken up from the nursery in an improper man- 

 ner, or by their too long exposure to the air ; now, these 

 roots, thus injured, soon rot in the ground, and the 

 plants are then nothing but the fragments of old shoots, 

 from which the new roots grow with much more diffi- 



