178 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



of these are excellent vines, and bespeak a good measure of success 

 speedily, but each grade removes the period of bearing about one year, 

 and when nearing the lower grades supposes a degree of attention by the 

 cultivator which they are not likely to receive. Here are No. 4 and 5, 

 which are stillmuch better than very many that are sold for the best vines, and 

 good vineyards maybe made from them; but there is no need of repeating 

 what I have said in regard to the economy of the best vines. Here are 

 vines two years old transplanted and root-pruned, and here are vines that 

 have been well treated to the time of their establishment in bearing at 

 four years old. I will now prepare all of them for planting by proper 

 pruning. 



Now these are all in proper condition for planting ; and although the 

 one four years old may give some imperfect fruit the first season, it does 

 not take so much of the effective apparatus of the vine with it into the 

 ground at transplanting as those called Extra, Best Selection, and No. 1 

 Transplanted; and at three years from planting it will be greatly below 

 any of the three in the value of its produce. 



It is time that this wrong idea of the increase of the value of vines by 

 age was entirely got rid of, for it is constantly leading to the most serious 

 disappointments, and at great expense. All vines, to be valuable and give 

 good permanent results, must, whatever may be their age, be brought to 

 the condition of one year old vines, for it is only the roots and wood of one 

 season that are of any value for transplanting. 



The simple statement that a vine is two years old, and has been trans- 

 planted, although it gives an important circumstance concerning it, does 

 not fully specify its value. A vine that is pretty small at one year old, if 

 it has maintained its health through the entire season, may be made to be- 

 come a pretty good plant at the end of the second, by transplanting and 

 root-pruning, if it receives besides the large amount of care that is 

 requii'ed. 



Without transplanting and root-pruning it will become a much larger 

 vine, and more attractive to some people, who do not know how to estimate 

 its quality ; but the iibrous, or secondary roots, near its center, upon 

 which the value of the plant chiefly depends, will be lost, and with it 

 nearly one year of time, at least. 



By those who are unacquainted with the important characteristics of 

 vines, the one not transplanted would be preferred from its greater size ; 

 but the practiced horticulturist or vineyardist, who has learned to judge of 

 the vines by their ability to produce in the garden or vineyard, will not 

 hesitate a moment in choosing the one which has its secondary roots where 

 they can be available, rather than at the extremities of the two-year old 

 roots, where they are all lost by the necessary cutting back at planting. 



In this way many tolerable vines of two years old, transplanted and 

 root-pruned, are made like those that I now exhibit. 



But the best vines, two years old, transplanted and root-pruned, can only 

 be produced from the best one year old single-eye plants, like the one I 

 now show, by pruning it to the form which it now presents, [showing it with 

 the roots cut back to about eight inches in length, and the cane cut to 



