214 GARDEN PLANTS. PART II. 



and in the centre of each beam fix a strong stake two or three 

 feet high, in order to support a trellis of bamboo made to meet 

 in the form of a pent-house roof over the path. Between each 

 pillar plant a vine. 



A grapery of this kind is in itself a great ornament to a garden, 

 and if not made on too narrow a path, as is often the case, a 

 most pleasant place for a stroll, when the sun is too much up 

 for a walk elsewhere. Potted plants also that require shade 

 can often be put along the sides of it, between the pillars, with 

 great advantage. 



The training of the vine is a very simple matter. Its figure, 

 properly trained, may be aptly likened to a huge gridiron 

 standing upright with its handle stuck in the ground, its top- 

 most horizontal bar removed, and the vertical ones two feet 

 apart. The young shoots near the base of a vine are easily bent 

 and secured so as to grow into this form ; and all wood but what 

 conduces to give it this form should be cut away at the proper 

 pruning season. Upon these bars young shoots will put forth 

 in March, each bearing two or three bunches of Grapes. These 

 fruit-bearing shoots will go on growing and lengthening till the 

 Cold season arrives, when they must be all cut back to two 

 eyes ; and at the same time all thin unripe wood that has been 

 made, of about the thickness of a cedar pencil, be cut clean away. 

 The vine will then present much of the naked gridiron form 

 again. From the two eyes thus reserved young shoots in the 

 following March will be produced, bearing their bunches of 

 Grapes, which in their turn must be cut back to two eyes in 

 the next Cold season, and so on. 



Were the annual fruit-bearing shoots not thus cut back to one 

 or two eyes, but left at their full length, in the following season 

 from every eye upon them fresh shoots would put forth, each 

 bearing bunches of Grapes. The crop would be very great, but 

 of very inferior quality, and the vine much exhausted and 

 injured. In neglected gardens this is too often allowed to take 

 place, year after year perhaps, till the plants become an intricate, 

 unmanageable, and unproductive jungul. Fortunately the vine 

 bears the knife well ; and my recommendation is in such cases 

 to use it unsparingly. Cut away everything, if needs be, till 

 only the stump remains. This will put forth strong, vigorous 

 shoots, which may be trained in the way above directed for a 



