The Cultivation of the Grape Vine. 119 



ing. I do not weed, because my vines are large, trained 

 upright, twenty-four feet high by twelve feet wide, and it is 

 difficult to climb about on the trellis without doing much 

 mischief to the young and tender fruit shoots ; beside, a con- 

 tinued hum of business will never allow me the time. It is 

 a capital idea, though, and I fully endorse, and approve of, 

 the "weeding."' 



As regards •'•summer pruning," or pinching, I must adhere 

 at present to my own practice, which consists only in pinch- 

 ing off the fruit-bearing shoot at the third joint (or fourth, 

 or fifth) beyond the fruit, but never any nearer. I will ex- 

 plain. Let the fruit appear and grow to the size of common 

 shot. If three bunches appear on a shoot, I cut out one 

 certain, and two, if they are not well set and destined to 

 grow to good size. Then, when the grapes get as large as 

 peas, I pinch off the shoot, never any nearer the outermost 

 bunch than three joints distant. About ten days afterward, 

 you will notice that the buds, beginning with the outermost 

 one, are breaking to grow. Very well, let them grow. They 

 will not exceed sixteen inches in length ; if they do, then 

 pinch them at the tips. You will have then a fruit-bearing 

 branch, with its two bunches of grapes, and two or three 

 little side shoots growing outside the grapes. At the same 

 time a new branch is growing at the foot of the fruit branch, 

 to bear fruit the next year ; the current year's fruit branch 

 being cut out altogether in the November pruning. Into this 

 next year's fruit branch, {spur, after it is pruned,) I wish to 

 throw all the spare force of the vine, and I believe that the 

 present fruit branch, with its three little shoots, like a little 

 bush, will be amply nourished thereby, with its fruit. 



Should I suffer the fruit branches to grow from " five to 

 twelve feet " beyond the fruit, my vines, as they are trained 

 upright, with seven canes twenty-two inches apart, would 

 become a wilderness of foliage, four or five feet thick ! Let 

 us calculate. On one of my canes, 24 feet long, there are 

 50 fruit branches, or two to a foot. On the seven canes, 

 then, would be 350 fruit branches. Now if each of these 

 were suffered to grow, say six feet, beyond where I generally 



