The Canadian Horticulturist. 199 



Dr. Fisher was asked to girdle one arm of each vine leaving the other 

 in natural condition. The Committee of the Horticultural Society visited Dr. 

 Fisher's vineyard the last week in August. It was curious to look at the 

 row ; on the girdled half the grapes were in a fit condition to pick for 

 market. The single grapes were as large as the Hamburgs in my cold 

 grapery. The others were just beginning to turn ; the Dr., on the 25th of 

 September, picked and sent the first lot to Dr. Goessmann ; on the first day 

 of October he selected specimens from each vine, and sent them for analysis. 



The two important elements in the Grape are sugar and water. In the 

 girdled vines the portion of water was seventy-six and a fraction per cent. In 

 the ungirdled vines it is eighty-one and a fraction per cent. In the girdled 

 there was seven and a fraction per cent, of sugar and in the ungirdled six and a 

 fraction of sugar. The girdled fruit thus surpassing in both respects. Dr. 

 Fisher said to me :" I was never more disappointed in all my life, although I 

 had given it more attention than ever before, and I had become certain 

 before the analysis that there was more sugar in the girdled fruit ; there 

 was more sweetness in its taste." 



Now, if this is a fact — if it does not injure the fruit, and it ripens from 

 one to two weeks earlier and increases its size from one-third to one-half , 

 it is certainly worth considering. In taking the later varieties and ripening 

 them a fortnight earlier it gives us more scope, and it is so easily done, it is 

 done in a moment, girdling the vines below the lowest fruit bud. If there 

 are a half dozen bunches — one-quarter of an inch below the lowest fruit bud, 

 girdling on July 15th perhaps. Mr. Wheeler says any time after the fruit 

 gets to be the size of buckshot. He has done it for ten years without any per- 

 ceptible injury ; still it is a question whether in the end it will not seri- 

 ously aflfect the vigor of the vines. — From paper read by F. jf. Kinney 

 be/ore the Boston Farmers^ Meeting. 



THINNING FRUIT. 



THE horticulturist of the Missouri Experiment station has made some 

 analyses of apples during the different periods of their growth, which 

 show that much of the greater proportion of the ash is stored up in 

 the early part of the growth of the fruit. This is urged as an additional 

 reason for thinning as soon as the wormy and imperfect specimens of the 

 fruit can be distinguished. A barrel of large and perfect apples takes a 

 smaller amount of mineral plant food from the soil than a barrel of small 

 inferior fruit. The apples on an acre of ground where the trees stand 

 thirty feet apart and yield ten bushels of fruit to the tree, take from the soil 



