Girdling of Trees. 291 
Careful vineyardists are able to continue the prac- 
tice year after year without apparent injury to the 
vine. The girdling is done when the grapes are 
about the size of peas, and a section of bark about 
an inch wide is entirely removed from the cane. A 
gain in earliness of a week to ten days may be 
secured by the process, but it is commonly believed 
that the quality of the better grapes is injured. As 
a matter of practice, only the very carliest varieties 
of grapes are girdled or ringed for commercial pur- 
poses; and it is doubtful if the practice is to be 
commended. 
Apples and other fruit trees are sometimes ringed 
to set them into bearing. “Many orchards develop 
a habit of redundant wood-bearing, and these are 
often thrown into fruiting by some check to the 
trees, as seeding down, girdling, and the _ like. 
Probably every orchardist has observed that the at- 
tacks of borers sometimes cause trees to bear. It 
is an old maxim that checking growth induces fruit- 
fulness. This is the explanation of the fact that 
driving nails into plum and peach trees sometimes 
sets the trees to bearing, and also of the similar in- 
fluence exerted by a label wire which has cut into the 
bark, or of a partial break in a branch. Girdling or 
ringing to set trees into bearing is an old and well- 
known practice. It is not to be advised as a general 
resort, but I should not hesitate to employ it upon 
one or two of the minor branches of an unprofitable 
tree for the purpose of determining if the tree needs 
a check, I-saw a Baldwin tree this year in which 
