297 



strength of your vines, and this will depend on the goodness 

 of the soil and the care you take of your plants. But, as a 

 general rule, the following points must be attended to : — 



1. The number and length of your fruit branches must 

 always depend on the strength of your plant ; the wood 

 branches are always to be cut down to two eyes. 



2. No more branches should be left on the vine than it 

 c«n nourish well and abundantly ; this will depend on 

 its age, and the soil in which it grows. 



3. The branches should be cut in alternately for wood 

 and fruit branches, observing to cut for wood branches as 

 low down on the plant as possible, so as to renew your 

 wood near the bottom annually. No shoots should be per- 

 mitted to grow from the old wood, unless wanted for this 

 purpose. 



4. No more shoots should be permitted to grow than can 

 be laid in clear, and handsome, and without confusion, on 

 the trellis, and so as to admit the sun and air freely among 

 the branches. 



5. The laterals should be rubbed out of the wood 

 branches six or ei-, t eyes high, and those that are per- 

 mitted to remain should be pinched into one bud. The 

 laterals on the fruit branches should be rubbed out from the 

 insertion of the shoot to the uppermost fruit inclusive, and 

 the others pinched in as above. If the shoots are very 

 strong, the upper laterals may be allowed to grow, to take 

 up a greater portion of the sap ; but this should not be 

 done unless there is danger of the eyes bursting in the 

 main shoots. Be careful always to keep the shoots tied up 

 near their top. 



6. Never leave more than five good eyes on a fruit-bear- 

 ing branch, unless your vine is confined to a narrow space, 

 and you are obliged to preserve only two or three fruit 

 branches ; in this case the length of the branch must cor- 

 respond to the nourishment it will receive from the plant. 

 Select the roundest and fairest branches for fruit, and the 

 lowest and most feeble for wood. The closer the buds are 

 together, or the shorter the joints of the branch, the better 

 they are for fruit ; these may in general be cut to three, 

 four, or five eyes, according to their strength. But in 

 vineries covered with glass, v/here two fruit-bearing 

 branches only are left on strong vines, twenty, thirty, and 

 forty buds are sometimes left on fruit branches. 



The foregomg rules will be sufficient for any one to 

 build up a vineyard sufficiently large to supply hirns^*!^. his 



