HOTHOUSE CULTURE OF VINES. 315 



with less wood on the vines. If they are correct, I should be 

 inclined to give the cane training the preference, especially 

 if the fruit obtained be as large and fine ; but of this I have 

 some doubt. I intend to make a fair experiment of the two 

 methods. 



" After the vine comes into leaf in the spring, there is no 

 longer any danger of bleeding from pruning. From this period, 

 I have allowed myself to cut out during the growing season, 

 any quantity of superfluous wood, the present years' shoots 

 for example, which were expected to give fruit, but have none. 

 Indeed at the autumnal pruning, I am accustomed to leave 

 more shoots, and some of them of a greater length, than they 

 should be according to common rules for the coming season, 

 which are to be left or taken away at the blossoming time, as 

 they promise to be frukful or not, or as may be expedient in 

 laying in the branches at the training. By this practice my 

 chance of a good crop is more certain of course than it would be 

 were I to leave no more shoots at the autumn pruning than I 

 expected to preserve the following season. I attach no little 

 importance to frequent pruning during summer, looking over 

 the vines once in a fortnight or oftener, and cutting out strag- 

 gling shoots, if any there be. Of this I make now a particular 

 mention, because I think I have noticed that cultivators of the 

 vine are apt to neglect pruning wholly for weeks together, and 

 the consequence of this neglect is, that the bearing wood re- 

 served for the following season is not so strong as it would 

 otherwise be ; nor, as I think, can the fruit of the next year 

 be so fine. In estimating a crop we sometimes, indeed most 

 commonly, are contented to enumerate the bunches of fruit ; 

 paying no regard to the weight, when in fact, as we all know, 

 a few clusters only of large berries, all well grown, are worth 

 a great many bunches, the fruit of which is but imperfectly 

 filled, and of which a considerable part of the berries wholly 

 fail. Insufficient pruning is probably one cause of this par- 

 tial failure of the fruit. So also we see often a luxuriant 

 blossom on the native vine in a wild state, and no fruit attain- 

 ing to perfection, or if any but a small quantity in proportion 



