CULTURE OF THE VINE AT THOMERY. 307 



cal, and the most simple mode of training. It is a point 

 susceptible of mathematical demonstration, that no mode of 

 training but the horizontal one can give so great an extent of 

 bearing wood without interference. The horizontal mode of 

 training has one other good effect ; it checks the tendency to 

 useless, injurious, and enormous growth." 



We have every reason for supposing that these small and 

 almost invisible buds are really the most fruitful ; for, even in 

 the old mode of pruning, it will be observed that the lower- 

 most good buds produce fruit first, when the vines commence 

 bearing. 



" To me," says the translator, " some of the remarks of the 

 writer are wholly new and truly surprising. I had no idea 

 that the small and almost invisible buds at the root of the 

 branch were those which produced the exquisite grapes sold 

 in Paris, under the name of Chasselas de Fontainbleau. It is 

 true, that last year I thought I had discovered an anomaly in 

 the grape. I found a fine shoot filled with fruit growing ap- 

 parently out of the side of an old branch as big as a man's 

 wrist. I deemed it so strange that I was upon the point of 

 asking some friends to come and see it, but upon examining 

 it more closely, I found that there had been a shoot there the 

 year before, which the gardener intended to extirpate, but did 

 not rub off at its base. It is these buds scarcely visible, that 

 furnish the fruit. To show the productiveness of the vine 

 in some certain cases, Mr. L. states at a different time, that he 

 had at the extremity of one branch, ten pairs of bunches, fully 

 ripened, growing in the space of one foot." 



The following additional particulars in regard to the 

 Thomery culture may be interesting : Along the walls at 

 three feet distant from each other are iron hooks soldered with 

 lead to support the braces of the trellis. The trellis is formed 

 by nine horizontal slats, or lattices, fastened by iron braces to 

 the hooks above mentioned, and on these are trained the 

 main branches of the vine. The perpendicular supports are 

 about two feet in height, and fastened to the horizontal ones 



