was not an inch of superfluous wood. It was planted on the 

 right side of the front door-way, and spreading at the top 

 to left and to right over the entire front of the house — it was 

 a wide house, too — the vine even turned the corners and 

 continued on its green and white way around both sides, 

 a lacy curtain far lovelier with its chaste white flowers than 

 the purple-flowered wistaria could ever have been for draping 

 a white house with green shutters. 



^ Why did it grow so wide, so open and so gracefully? you 

 ask. It grew that way because it had been intelligently and 

 regularly pruned to spurs and only when the spur system 

 of pruning is adopted will wistaria be seen in all its proper 

 magnificence. Do you know, Amateur Gardeners, that by 

 pruning away all the long twined and untwined rods of 

 growth, leaving but two or three inches only, those two or 

 three inches are called spurs and as they are so short and the 

 sap has but that bit of length to flow, naturally it is retained 

 in the great, producing, parent trunk. Every spur will yield 

 many many rods, so heavy with the long white flower tassels 

 that they mu^ be given a ^rong supporting aid with tape 

 or cleats S$ 53 



^ At this time you may train it to any position; the rods 

 may go up the side and over window frames and bays as well 

 as under, covering marble, ^one, brick or wood and growing 

 more lovely every year. A wistaria vine that had not flowered 

 in several years, was given a drastic spur pruning. It had 

 over-run everything and the pruning was a feat of patience 

 and strength but it was finally accomplished. And what do 

 you suppose this almost naked vine proceeded to do? Why 

 it flowered in late July. A whimsical thing to be sure, but 

 the thinning and spurring it had been subjec5ted to Parted 



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