100 PIOTOBIAL PRAOTIOAL FRUIT GROWING. 



Some growers do not hesitate to use the syringe for dispersing the pollen; 

 but amateurs might easily overdo this, and will perhaps be wise to rely on 

 shaking the rods, or circling the bunch with the fingers and drawing the 

 hand gently down. Even this is not really necessary if the weather be 

 bright and the atmosphere not saturated with moisture, as the warm, dry 

 breezes flowing through the ventilators will scatter the pollen and ensure 

 setting. 



Selecting and Thinning the Bunches.— There are few Grape 

 growers, probably, who do not look forward to that halcyon time when 

 some inventive genius shall have introduced a device for thinning Grapes by 

 machinery. The task is tedious, slow, and, to active people, irritating. 

 Moreover, unless done in the early morning it is so trying that if we gave 

 our convicts a course of it the humanitarians would be in full cry. As it is 

 only honest people who undergo the ordeal, of course it does not matter. 

 The bunches must be thinned if they are to be any good, and in the absence 

 of the patent we must get up in the small hours and wrestle it out. To 

 begin with, I should like to say that many people give themselves a great 

 deal of unnecessary trouble in the task of forming a shapely bunch through 

 making a bad choice to begin with. If the bunch is naturally ill shaped 

 considerable difficulty will be experienced in making a good one of it ; in 

 fact, the task may prove to be impossible. On the other hand, if the bunch 

 is naturally well formed the task is comparatively easy. It is not too much 

 to say that the future bunch may be seen in the tiny one which first forms. 

 Study the shape of this for a few moments. Perhaps the first one seen is a 

 lop-sided customer, or squat and ungainly, or dumpy at the base. If so, 

 remove it. On the other hand, it may taper to a point, and the upper part 

 be graced by a pair of well-balanced " shoulder " shoots. If so, keep it ; it 

 is the sort of bunch to do you credit. Theoretically, a model bunch should 

 come to a point at the base, which should consist of one good berry. 

 Preserve this, and with a parr of pointed Grape scissors in the right hand to 

 clip out the berries, and a small forked twig in the left to hold the bunch 

 steady, work upwards towards the shoulders, preserving the balance and 

 symmetry as much as possible. Thinning must not be deferred after the 

 berries are ^ inch in diameter. At that stage, or just before, it is easy to 

 calculate the amount of space to leave. Eemember that enough should be 

 provided for the berries to " pack " a little, and thereby ensure a firm bunch. 

 Bunches with tightly squeezed berries and bunches with loose berries are 

 equally bad. More space must be left for large berried sorts like Gros 

 Colman and Gros Maroc than for Black Hamburghs, Alicantes, Muscats, and 

 Lady Downe's. 



Ventilation and Scalding, — There is a great deal in ventilation. 

 Three-fourths of the trouble which we now have from scalding would be 

 obviated if air-giving were properly understood. The first principle to be 

 learned is this : Ventilate to keep down the temperature, not to bring it 

 down after it has once been allowed to get very high. Ventilation should 

 be practised very early in the morning. If the house is not looked at till 

 8 o'clock, it may happen that the temperature has risen so high that it 

 is impossible to get it down. Rather than this should happen, leave a little 

 air on all night. Late ventilation shows its evils the most strongly when a 

 spell of dull weather is followed by a sudden outburst of sunshine. Owing 

 to the surface of the berries being cold, moisture condenses on them, and 

 when the sun bursts out this is licked up so rapidly that the skin suffers — 



