V,.] 



LIST OF FRUITS. 



209 



upright locust-bars to tie the next surnmer's shoots to. You will 

 want (see hg. 2) eight shoots to come out to run horizontally, to 

 be tied to these bars. You must now, then, in winter, cut off youi' 

 vine, leaving eight buds or joints. You see there is a mark for 

 this cut at fig 1. During summer, eight shoots will come, and, 

 as they proceed on, they must be tied with matting, or something 

 soft, to the bars. The whole vine, both ways included, is sup- 

 posed to go sixteen feet ; but, if your tillage be good, it will go 

 much further, and then the ends must be cut off in winter. Now, 

 then, winter presents you your vine as in fig. 2 ; and now you 

 must prune, which is the all important part of the business. Ob- 

 serve, and bear in mind, that little or no fruit ever comes on a 

 grape-vine, except on young shoots that come out of wood of the 

 last year. All the four last year's shoots that you find in fig. 2 

 would send out bearers ; but if you suffer that, you will have a 

 great quantity of small wood, and little or no fruit next year. 

 Therefore, cut off four of the last year's shoots, as at h, fig. 3, 

 leaving only one hud. The four other shoots will send out a shoot 

 from every one of their buds, and, if the vine be strong, there will 

 be two hunches of grapes on each of these young shoots ; and, as 

 the last year's shoots are supposed to be each eight feet long, and 

 as there is generally a bud at, or about, every half foot, every last 

 year's shoot will produce thirty-two bunches of grapes ; every 

 vine 128 bunches ; and the twelve vines 1536 ; and, possibly, nay, 

 probably, so many pounds of grapes ! Is this incredible ? Take, 

 then, this well known fact, that there is a grape-vine, a single 

 vine, with only one stem, in the King's gardens, at his palace of 

 Hampton Court, which has, for perhaps half a century, produced 

 annually nearly a ton of grapes ; that is to say, 2240 pounds 

 avoirdupois weight. That vine covers a space of seventy-two feet 

 in length, and twenty-two in breadth. However, suppose you 

 have only a fifth part of what you might have, 300 bunches 

 of grapes are worth a great deal more than the annual trou- 

 ble, which is, indeed, very littie. Fig. 4 shows a vine in sum- 

 mer. You see the four shoots hearing, and four other shoots 

 coming on for the next year, from the butts left at the winter 

 pruning as at h. These four latter you are to tie to the bars as 

 they advance on during the summer. When winter comes again, 

 you are to cut off the four shoots that sent out the bearers 

 during the summer, and leave the four that grew out of the 



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