Pruning the Vine. 123 



Use of the Parent Stock or Frame of the Plants. The 

 vine could easily be cultivated in the vineyard so as to 

 obtain an abundant yield from it, without annually re- 

 newing the fruit-stems from the same stock. The only 

 thing required for that purpose will be to layer, every 

 year, the wood which produced the fruit-stems, so that 

 the stock would be annually renewed. This is the or- 

 dinary method in most of the Champagne vineyards. 

 But experience has long since shown that this method, 

 while it increases the vigor of the fruit-stems, has a 

 very unfavorable influence on the quality of the grapes, 

 and consequently, on the wine also. The sap must 

 circulate slowly, and gradually, from the roots to the 

 branches, so that it may the better ripen the fruit. The 

 parent stock, being more or less knotty and crooked, 

 intervening between the roots and fruit-stems, produces 

 this result. The sap can circulate through it only at a 

 certain speed, thereby assisting in the perfection, within 

 the tissues of the fruit, of those elements which make 

 good wines. It is for this reason that the older, the 

 longer, and more crooked, the parent stock, the less vig- 

 orous are the shoots, and the better is the product. 

 The younger vines, on the contrary, yield inferior wine. 

 This is easily seen in the first bunches of the young 

 layers. 



What I have just said is enough to show the use of 

 the parent stock, but it must be added, however, that 

 from this parent stock the shoot acquires a degree of 

 development proportionate to its vigor, so as to assist 

 its maturity. 



Proper Dimensions of the Vine. All varieties of grapes 

 do not grow with the same vigor. The most vigorous 



