148 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



liorticultural art, assures me that the experience of any one, however simple, 

 may be of service. 



My little vineyard is situated on a side hill, facing the west, and protected 

 on the north by a belt of pine woods. I should have preferred a more 

 southern or eastern aspect. The soil is by no means what would be called 

 a strong one; it consists of from four to six inches of turf mould, with a 

 reddish subsoil about two feet deep, resting upon a bed of blue gravel. In 

 preparing for the vines, the ground was trenched two feet deep, and the top 

 soil put at the bottom. Stakes eight feet long were then set at the distance 

 of seven feet apart, each way ; one vine was planted to each stake, and 

 immediately cut down to two eyes. 



And here let me say a word as to the time of setting the vines. My 

 experience is greatly in favor of fall planting. A vine set in the autumn 

 (and it should be done as soon as the leaf falls) will in three years be as 

 strong and as capable of bearing a crop of fruit as one of five years old set 

 in the spring. The training of my vines is at once simple and ornamental. 

 The first year two shoots are allowed to grow, and as they elongate are 

 carried spirally, both in the same direction, about five inches apart, around 

 the stake, and this is continued until they reacli the top. The laterals are 

 allowed to grow at random. In the fall they should be pruned back to 

 within eighteen inches of the ground, and the laterals to one eye. 



Second year, continue the two canes from the two uppermost eyes, as 

 directed in the first year. The laterals will require summer pruning. In 

 the fall cut back the canes to within eighteen inches of last year's wood. 

 Continue this course until tlie vine is established the whole length of the 

 post — whatever surmounts it is to be cut back. The fruit is borne upon the 

 side shoots, and the pruning is on the short spur system. The form of the 

 vine may be shaped to the taste of the cultivator ; that of the pyramid is 

 decidedly the best. 



Those who understand the nature of the vine will readily perceive the 

 advantage this system offers. The vine is thus kept at home. The light 

 and air circulate freely through it. The buds break easily; there is no 

 tendency in one part to rob the other of its due proportion of sap, and when 

 once established requires less care than any other mode of training. 



Some of my vines, the first year after planting, were watered with sink- 

 drain water, and being satisfied that it injured them, I have discontinued 

 the practice, and have since root-pruned them, in order to check too free a 

 growth of wood. Many of my neighbors injured their vines by giving them 

 large quantities of stimulating manures, such as fresh stable manure, dead 

 horses or other animal manure ; thereby exciting them to make an increased 

 growth of long-jointed wood. I grow my vines for the fruit, and am satis- 

 fied if they make a few feet of short-jointed wood, and the only manure (if 

 manure it may be called) which I now give them is a top-dressing of anthra- 

 cite coal ashes. 



The Diana, with me, has proved a great grower and free bearer — the 

 bunches of good size, and the berries large, some of them measuring seven- 

 eighths of an inch in diameter. It is a matter of surprise that this, the 



