250 Account of the Pitmaston White Cluster Grape. 



this defect can only be remedied in young Vines, by the free 

 use of the scissars ; however, if the shoots are trained along 

 a considerable extent of wall, the bunches spread out much 

 wider, and the berries attain a larger size. This property of 

 the vine, although known to experienced gardeners, is not 

 taken advantage of, as it ought to be. A Vine might be 

 trained horizontally under the coping of a wall to a great 

 distance, and by inverting the bearing shoots, the spaces 

 between the other fruit trees and the top of the wall, could 

 readily be filled up, and if different Vines were inarched to 

 the horizontal branch, the south wall of a large garden 

 might be furnished with a variety of sorts from the stem and 

 root of a single plant, the roots of which would not encumber 

 the border in which the other fruit trees are growing. I have an 

 experiment of this kind now in progress in my garden. Within 

 a few years past, I have gradually trained bearing branches of 

 a small Black Cluster Grape, to the distance of near fifty 

 feet from the root, and I find the bunches every year grow 

 larger, and ripen earlier as the shoots continue to advance. 

 According to Mr. Knight's theory of the circulation of 

 the sap, the ascending sap must necessarily become enriched 

 by the nutricious particles it meets with in its progress 

 through the vessels of the alburnum ; the wood at the top of 

 tall trees, therefore, becomes short jointed and full of blossom 

 buds, and the fruit there situated attains its greatest perfec- 

 tion. Hence we find Pine and Fir trees loaded with the 

 finest cones on the top boughs, the largest acorns grow on the 

 terminal branches of the Oak, and the finest mast on the high 

 boughs of the Beech and Chestnut ; so likewise Apples, Pears, 



