288 Vineyard Culture. 



summer than at the beginning, will also have the effect 

 of greatly increasing the vigor of these new shoots. 



" Such is the process which appears most rational to 

 me, and which I should not hesitate to employ if I had 

 vines mangled by hail, like those of which you speak. 

 It is, no doubt, a pity that the means I indicate involve 

 fresh expenditures, but I think the loss would be still 

 greater if nothing were done, for the stocks would at 

 least be condemned to barrenness for several years." 



If hail struck a vineyard at too advanced a period for 

 us to entertain a hope of seeing the new shoots mature 

 themselves sufficiently before winter, we should have 

 to give up the idea of this short pruning. In that case 

 it would be proper to reduce the length of the shoots 

 only one half. Some new shoots will be obtained, in- 

 tended to keep up vegetation in the stocks until the end 

 of the season. At the winter pruning, the original 

 shoots being better organized than in the former case, 

 since they have been struck later, will be pruned as 

 usual. It will, however, be requisite to prune a little 

 shorter, for the plants will necessarily be less vigorous. 



4th. Heat of the Sun. The heat of the sun may 

 prove hurtful to the products of the vine under the fol- 

 lowing circumstances : In the burning summers of the 

 southern, and even the middle region, when the grapes 

 are laid bare by a premature fall of leaves, the bunches 

 thus suddenly exposed, and struck directly by a burning 

 sun, are often scorched, and they dry up more or less 

 completely. Bunches struck directly by the sun, at a 

 very early stage, recover more readily from this acci- 

 dent, the cuticle of the berries having gradually become 

 used to that influence. Nevertheless, when the ground 



