PRUNING. 249 



shoots, which require constant removal in house 

 or wall management. The tendrils are a useless ap- 

 pendage if the vine dresser does his duty. The lateral 

 or water shoots' 3 *' are somehow connected with 

 the organisation of the principal huds ; because if 

 they be trimmed off from the leading shoot when it 

 is growing strongly, the bud at their base will very 

 frequently burst, and consequently be lost for the 

 service of the following year. To prevent this, the 

 laterals are stopped above their first joint, which will 

 hinder unnecessary exhaustion of the tree, and at the 

 same time not injure the principal buds, on the 

 preservation of which the crop of the next year 

 entirely depends. At the pruning season these 

 laterals, if any be left, are cut closely off. Here it 

 may again be necessary to repeat, that the summer 

 dressing is to check the natural luxuriance of the 

 tree, confine the sap in the desired channels, and 

 give a full supply of this to the crop of fruit. Vine 

 dressing is even extended to regulating and thinning 

 the bunches, in order that the berries may swell to a 

 full size, and be not injured by bearing too closely on 

 each other. 



Connected with the management of the vine may 

 be mentioned a method of planting it practised in some 

 parts of France, and which deserves to be noticed. It 



* It is said that some kinds of the grape vine in the south of 

 France produce second'crops ; the last from the laterals of the prin- 

 cipal shoots. This circumstance occasionally occurs in our hot-houses 

 where the trees are very luxuriant. But neither is such fruit, nor 

 such property of the tree, worth the notice of British cultivators. 



