THE CULTUEE OF THE GRAPE. 129 



Prune at the same time, and in the same way as last 

 year ; and, at the autumn trimming, leave four feet more 

 of the new cane ; this will now be sixteen or seventeen 

 feet long, and of suiBcient length to bear as large crops 

 as the vine should ever be required to do. In Ifovember, 

 clean and place the vines, and protect them from frost, 

 as heretofore. 



I have never met with any which has detailed this mode of treatment, or 

 recommended its adoption. I have heard it, in conversation, described as 

 the ' walking-stick system,' hecause its principle consists in giving very 

 much that appearance to the main stem, which is always preserved. At 

 each autumnal pruning, the whole of the new wood is cut off to within an 

 eighth of an inch of the old stem. So small, indeed, is the spur left, that 

 the growth of the wood of the following year nearly levels it with the 

 old wood. At the point of junction of this eighth of an inch with tho 

 stem, one or more buds are developed, wliieh, in the succeeding year, 

 become the shoots upon which the fruit is produced. The old fashioned 

 grape-grower sees with dismay, in this system, all the buds of tho year 

 which have grown and ripened under the influence of a summer and 

 autumn's sun, annihilated ' at one fell swoop,' and stares, when told that he 

 is to trufst entirely, for his crop of next year, to a bud which he can hardly 

 see. Might I ask your contributors, who delight in vine culture, whether 

 the success of this plan depends upon the great power working at tto 

 roots, — the forty barge loads of manure, such as our friend at Bishop's 

 Stortford supplies to the gluttony of his vines, — and which converts that 

 which, in ordinary circumstances, would be at best but a weak wood bud, 

 to the production of the finest fruit ? Is this mode of pruning likely to be 

 generally successful? There are, undoubtedly, many advantages in it. 

 Amongst others, it does seem more consistent with nature, and with all our 

 ideas of rendering culture subservient to her laws, to retain the main stem 

 of the tree which furnishes the largest capacity for the flow of the sap ; it 

 also enables us to keep both fruit and foliage close under the rafters, and 

 thereby to secure the greater quantity of light flowing into our houses. 

 J. J." — Gardenfft's Chronicle, 1847, p. llS. 



At the exhibition of the London Horticultural Society, in N'ovember 

 18i7, grapes of the Black Hamburgh and Muscat of Alexandria varieties, 

 from the above vineries, obtained the Knightian medal, and it was said of 

 them, that "better specimens eoul". scarcely have been desired." 

 6* 



