The Canadian Horticulturist. 



227 



TRIMMINC, GRAPE VINEb. 



S I promised you to say a few words upon this practical 

 subject, I shall remark that pruning, in its essential quality, 

 is antdgonistic to nature. It is an effort to bring her in har- 

 mony to our designs and our uses, so as best to promote 

 our advantages and to reach our ideals. Or as Shake- 

 speare says : " This is an art that does mend hiature." 

 Further, it may be regarded as a mortal thrust at the life 

 of the plant, and often causes it to produce and do what it would not or could 

 not otherwise be induced to do. As, for example, to bring a fruitless plant into 

 the state and condition of fruit bearing, and to improve the quantity and the 

 quality of the fruit of a plant, heretofore unsatisfactory. Further, I may remark, 

 that all pruning should be with matured and enlightened judgment, and to the 

 least possible expenditure or loss of the vital forces in the plant. It is better if 

 it can be made not so much a severe and bleeding slaughter process, threatening 

 and taking the very life of the plant, but rather corrective and directive of its 

 forces, so as to accomplish our ends and designs in its life, and to show us 

 its beautiful fruits in highest perfection of quality and with the least possible 

 disturbance of its vital economies. The plants most easily affected by pruning 

 and other manipulation, are the grape vines and raspberries of all sorts. These 

 can be made, to produce for us almost up to the demands of our will and by 

 mild and judicious manipulations are improved by the process. The readiness 

 and willingness of response in these directions will often astonish us and is itself 

 a proof of the perfect subjectiveness of nature, in all its forms, to man, as the 

 head of creation and lord of the vegetable and lower world. 



The vine may be regarded as an immense reservoir of pleasing resources 

 of force and fruitfulness, that, to be so pleasing and satisfactory and profitable to 

 us, must be properly developed, controled and directed to our advantage, but if 

 neglected, seem to waste itself — and actually does — in rampant, useless 

 growth, and mere showful foliage. The philosophy of pruning, is simply to 

 throw the vital forces of the plant where most useful, viz.: in the full and 

 proper production of fruit in the highest perfection of form and internal quality, 

 and to prevent loss as much as possible by useless exuberance. In the case 

 of grapes it is very easy to tell by looking at the fruit, what the management has 

 been, whether good or bad. The small, poorly filled bunch and meagre skinny 

 berries filled merely with seeds and a valueless scanty liquid, is a standing com- 

 ment of neglect and a severe stricture upon Canadian grape growing. The 

 opposite of this is the exception and not the rule, for which we greatly lament, 

 as better things might and should be said of us. Only witness the studied art 

 in this particular as seen practically carried out in our best vine-houses under 



