CHAPTER XV. 



OF GIRDLING. 



Girdling is a means of forcing the ripening of the grape, and in 

 creasing its size and qualities. By the oldest records we have, it 

 appears that it is a process that has been long and well known, and 

 was used to prevent the blighting of the Vine. All writers on agri- 

 culture, from Theophrastes and Pliny, down to Julius Hygin, speak 

 of it in the most unequivocal terms, as a practice in use among all 

 the gardeners and vine-dressers of their time. 



It was accomplished by twisting, wrenching or half-breaking 

 the branches ; by driving large pegs into the trunk ; or finally, as I 

 have seen done by many farmers in Italy, by taking off from the 

 stems circular bands of bark, of indifferent breadths, shortly before 

 the opening of the flower. Notwithstanding its utility, the method 

 had been lost or dropped during the middle ages, or only used in some 

 circumscribed localities. 



In the beginning of the XVIIth century Olivier ds Sevres revived 

 it in Frances since his time Magnol recommended it as a means of 

 increasing the quantity and quality of the olive crop. Buffon and his 

 worthy disciple, Duhamel Duynonceau, tried it on other fruit-trees, 

 Rozievj on his side, tried many experiments with it which are record- 

 ed in the Agricultural Transactions ; while my late friend, the cele- 

 brated Andre Thouin, of the Institute, has demonstated its surprising 

 results; not only on all the trees comprised under the head of stone 

 or seed-fruit, nut or berry-bearing trees, but on woody plants of very 

 distant families. For a practical proof of its application to the Vine, 

 I may cite M. Lamhry, who owns a large nursery at iviandres, near 

 Brie-Comte-Robert, (Seine and Oise,) and who has girdled his Vines 

 regularly for the last forty years, and constantly recovered large and 

 excellent crops. Such is the abridged history of girdling, against 

 which, from time to time, some idle ignoramus raises here and there, 

 a solitary voice. 



Girdling should be resorted to when a cold or damp spell retards 



