244 Vineyard Culture. 



expensive operations to be performed upon the farm, and 

 should never be undertaken where it is possible to avoid it ; 

 and yet, in the preparation of our composts, it will be very- 

 well to bear in mind the especial needs of the soils upon 

 which they are to be spread, and to select clays, sands, or 

 other modifying agents, as they may seem to be indicated by 

 the character of the land. With our mobile population, and 

 the comparatively small investment in the tenure of real estate, 

 it is often better to move away from a bad soil to a better one, 

 than to attempt any very expensive process for its melioration.] 



XII. 



MAINTENANCE AND RENEWAL OF THE 

 PLANTS. 



A T the age of from fifteen to forty years, according 

 to the kind of plants, the method of pruning, and 

 the more or less favorable circumstances of the locality, 

 the vine crops begin to decrease, and this decrease, 

 slight at first, becomes, at last, considerable. A vine- 

 yard that had produced two hundred gallons, with the 

 same care and the same manures, will yield only from 

 ninety-five to one hundred gallons, when the vines are 

 thirty or forty years old. This state of things is not 

 entirely owing to the exhaustion of the soil; it is chiefly 

 produced by the crooked form of the wood of the vine. 

 The principal branches become too much extended, 

 and every year they are cut in such a way as to form a 

 number of angles, in which the anastomoses of the ves- 

 sels make a labyrinth through which the sap circulates 

 with difficulty. 



