326 AMERICAN GRAPE CULTURE. 



fruit is consequently imperfect, and the vine it- 

 self becomes a prey to mildew. When, there- 

 fore, a person who has enfeebled vines a couple 

 of years old by letting them carry twenty or 

 more bunches of fruit, says to you that such 

 kinds "won't do well with him," you will un- 

 derstand that the fault lies in his treatment, 

 and not in the vine. He has overdone the 

 thing, and the work of his own hands condemns 

 him. The ill effects of overcropping are not 

 confined to the grape ; they are more or less 

 seen in all kinds of fruits. Let nothing, there- 

 fore, tempt you into overcropping your vines; 

 justice to yourself, to others, and to the vines, 

 demands this. 



We may as well correct here a common mis- 

 apprehension, that the largest wood is the best 

 for fruit. This is not so ; the best grapes are 

 produced on medium-sized wood, round, short- 

 jointed, and having full, plump buds ; and the 

 second bud from the base will produce larger 

 bunches than the first ; hence the advantage of 

 the double spur, in which we use the first bud 

 for wood, and the second for fruit. 



A word or two in regard to the safety valves. 

 If there is one to each arm in the double arm 

 system, and there never should be more than 



