610 



FRUIT GARDEN. 



operation must be carefully attended to during 

 summer, and at the next winter - pruning it 

 should be shortened back to the length of 6 or 

 7 feet ; the next winter -pruning in a propor- 

 tionate degree, and so on until it gains the top 

 of the house. Of course this method will in- 

 volve the loss of a crop for a season ; but when 

 this cannot be done conveniently, every alter- 

 nate vine may be thus cut down, leaving the 

 others to produce fruit, which in this case may 

 be left on in greater number, to make up for the 

 loss of the others. 



Some vine-growers renew their vines by train- 

 ing up a young shoot from some convenient part 

 near the bottom, and by this means, in a couple 

 of years, have a shoot prepared to form the 

 future leader. This mode is not to be recom- 

 mended, for in effecting it both shoot and crop 

 suffer. 



Mearns' long or succession mode of pruning 

 is fully described and illustrated in the fourth 

 volume of " Transactions of the Horticultural 

 Society ;" the following is the substance of 

 it. The plants are set within the house, close 

 to the front wall, at the distance of 24 feet 

 apart, and are headed down to within a foot of 

 the ground at the time of planting. Only one 

 shoot is allowed to proceed from each plant, 

 which, at the termination of the first season, is 

 cut down to the second or third eye. The year 

 following, two leading shoots are allowed to 

 proceed, the strongest of which is stopped 

 when it has extended three or four joints beyond 

 the middle of the roof, and the weaker after it 

 has grown 3 or 4 feet. In autumn following, 

 the leading shoots are shortened back, the prin- 

 cipal one to the length of the middle of the roof, 

 and the lower one to the third eye. At the 

 third season's pruning, one leading shoot is 

 trained in from the principal leader, and from 

 the bearing -wood immediately below the last 

 fruit -bearing side -shoots are produced, one 

 branch is left on each, and the shoot stopped at 

 one or two joints above it. No side shoots are 

 allowed to proceed from the shoot coming up in 

 succession, the leading shoot of which is to be- 

 come the bearing-wood of the next year. By 

 this process the lower part of the house in the 

 third season is furnished with a crop of fruit 

 from shoots proceeding from wood of the pre- 

 ceding year, and parallel to this bearing-wood 

 on each vine is the young wood for the next 

 year's crop. At next winter's pruning the shoot 

 from the extremity of the bearing branch is cut 

 off to within a few inches of the top of the 

 rafter, and the shoot following in succession, 

 and parallel to the last, is shortened back to the 

 middle of the roof, and all the spurs which had 

 borne fruit upon the other are cut clean away. At 

 this period of management each vine is furnished 

 with two shoots of bearing-wood, that portion 

 of old wood that had produced fruit during the 

 past summer, and also a spur within a few 

 inches of the ground, from which a shoot for 

 the following year is to be produced. During 

 the fourth season a full crop of fruit is pro- 

 duced on the upper and lower half of the house, 

 the longest shoot bearing on the upper half of 

 its length, and the shorter on its whole length, 



while two leading or successional shoots are 

 encouraged, the one from the short shoot, and 

 the other from the spur near the ground. The 

 centre shoot, which had now borne two crops of 

 fruit, and been allowed the whole length of the 

 rafter, is cut out at the winter-pruning of the 

 fourth year, and the side shoot growing parallel 

 to it is substituted in its place, which has now 

 reached the top of the house; and this shoot is 

 in its turn cut out and replaced by the next in 

 succession, and so on — thus constituting the 

 successional system, which might be continued 

 for any length of time. 



Main's long-shoot pruning. — The following 

 judicious remarks on winter-pruning the vine, 

 especially those grown in pine stoves, were given 

 some years ago by the late Mr J. Main, in a note 

 which appeared in " The Gardeners' Magazine," 

 vol. ii. p. 413. Of the advantages of the plan 

 we have had several years' experience. " In the 

 culture of the vine it is sometimes necessary to 

 lay in shoots of great length. In such cases 

 much care is required that a regular and suffi- 

 cient number of the fruit-buds should break 

 from the bottom to the top, and prevent the 

 lower part of such shoots from being quite 

 naked and barren. To avoid this, let the pruner, 

 after cutting the shoot to the required length, 

 and finding, from the firm texture of the wood, 

 that it is sufficiently ripened, proceed to thin 

 the buds as follows : viz., leave the upper- 

 most bud, which may be called 1 ; cut out 2 

 and 3, leave 4 ; cut 5 and 6, leave 7 ; and dis- 

 place 8 and 9, and so on to the bottom of the 

 shoot. This thinning of the eyes will cause all 

 those that are left to break regularly, and so 

 alternately with each other, that the disposition, 

 whether for the sake of superior fruit or facili- 

 tating the future management of the tree, will 

 be found exactly what the manager would wish, 

 he taking care to stop all the young shoots in 

 their progress, immediately beyond the fruit, 

 except the lowest, which must be trained to its 

 full length for similar management the follow- 

 ing year." This is a mode of proceeding that 

 deserves much more attention than appears to 

 be bestowed upon it. 



The illustrations given by Harrison show the 

 long-rod principle more clearly than any de- 

 scription can convey. Fig. 248 represents a 

 vine at the second winter-prun- 

 ing; the leading shoot a, pro- 

 ceeding from that which pro- 

 duced fruit the previous sum- 

 mer, is cut back, leaving 6 feet 

 only of that year's growth ; the 

 lowest shoot b must be cut 

 back to the length of 4 feet 

 from its base. The intention 

 of this cutting back is to re- 

 tain no more buds than the 

 plant will be fully able to sus- 

 tain, both in the formation of 

 wood and production of fruit. 

 That part of the main stem 

 which produced fruit is to be 

 completely deprived of its buds, 

 as shown *'at d c. Fig. 249, 



Fig. 248. 



HARRISON S LONG- 

 ROD VINE-TRAINr.NO 



SECOND YEAR. 



'shows th( 



at the third 



