PROCEEDIXGS OF THE FARIIERS' CLUB. 189 



on as long as the vine continues, to grow. This keeps them in 

 check, and by leaving occasionally a leaf, it does not deprive the 

 vine of so many leaves as it would if the laterals were broken off 

 close to the main stem, as is sometimes done, and we may say 

 safely done at the beginning of the season — but at midsummer 

 and later in the season there is dnnger of forcing out the next 

 season's fruit bud, which is at the base of the lateral, and when 

 this is done, of course you lose your next season crop. This 

 summer pinching has always been an operation that was strictly 

 attended to in all well regulated vineyards in all ages. 



It was called, in olden times, pampinating — taken from the 

 word pampinus, a young shoot. In later days, weeding the vines. 

 Columella says that we should suspend the operation while the 

 vines were in flower, for fear of destroying the embryo fruit — an 

 idea worth remembering. The main shoot may be stopped when 

 it arrives at the proper height, and then let the uppermost buds 

 push out and grow for a while, and then check these. By doing 

 so we can often make our vines much stronger in growth than 

 they would otherwise be if this was not done, beside ripening 

 their wood thoroughly. If we allow all the late-rals or side 

 branches to grow on a vine, and by doing so divide and subdi- 

 vide the nutriment which it receives through its roots, we shall 

 then have many small and weak branches, none of which will be 

 strong enough to fully develop or mature their fruit. 



In our northern latitude we have always observed that when 

 vines were alloAved to grow in this way, these small shoots were 

 never well ripened when the cold weather came, and the conse- 

 quences were, we had immature wood and immature roots, both 

 of which were destroyed by the cold weather. For it is indispu- 

 table that unless a vine is made to mature all its branches by the 

 time cold weather comes, a corresponding number of its roots 

 will also be unripe. To this cause alone a great proportion of 

 the failures in the vine culture in this vicinity can be attributed. 

 Further, when we come to the annual pruning, if we have one 

 hundred branches to cut off, we make one hundred wounds, each 

 one of which will take a certain amount of alburnum to heal 

 over, and thereby causing a vast amount of the strength of the 

 vine to be directed to this purpose, which might have been used 

 in furnishing food for new wood and fruit, had there not been 

 more than one-tenth of that number of wounds, which is all that 



