THE GRAPE. 



585 



bear these two facts constantly in mind, because otherwise he might go on 

 pruning his vines for years, without ever having a single bunch of fruit. 

 By pruning vines in the open garden a week or two before the fall of the 

 leaf, they are put sooner to rest, and will burst their buds earlier the follow- 

 ing spring. 



1283. — Thinning. The bunches ought to be reduced in number, when 

 more are produced than it would be judicious to allow the plant to mature ; 

 and some of the leaves ought to be removed; when they are so much crowded 

 about the bunches as to prevent them from colouring. In tliinning out the 

 berries of bunches, the bunch ought never to be taken hold of by the fin- 

 gers, as is too frequently done, but by a small piece of hooked wire, and 

 the berries ought to be taken off with a pair of small scissors. Thinning 

 grapes with hands covered with perspiration, or with foul scissors, frequently 

 produces the rust, an incurable disease, which greatly disfigures the berries. 

 —(Gard. Chron. 1842, p. 289). 



1284. — Setting the blossom. It sometimes happens, more especially in 

 early forcing, that the incipient bunches twist and shrivel up just before 

 coming into bloom ; the cause appears to be the want of heat at the root, 

 which may either arise from the roots being too deep, or from their being 

 outside, and not properly protected by thatching, (956) or warmed by 

 hot dung. The permanent remedy for this evil is obvious ; but as Mr. 

 Fish judiciously observes, " it is frequently of as much, if not of more, 

 importance, to know how to make the most of existing circumstances, 

 though unfavourable, than to be conversant with the very circumstances 

 and management that will ensure success," We will state Mr. Fish's remedy 

 for this serious evil. To keep the bunches from shrivelling and twisting up, 

 Mr. Fish suspended small pieces of lead, little stones, bits of clay, &c,, 

 with slight strings of matting to the points of his bunches, just when they 

 were coming into bloom, sometimes attaching an additional small weight 

 to the shoulder of the bunch (Gard. Chron., 1842, p. 189). In this way 

 the blossoms set, and the bunches came to maturity when every other 

 means had failed, and this not merely in a solitary instance, or on a small 

 scale, but in a house of great width in Mr. Tattersall's garden at Hyde 

 Park Corner, and in several wide houses, in which the roots of the vines 

 have got down into a moist clay, in the garden at Putteridgebury, the seat of 

 Colonel Sowerby, near Luton. We had an opportunity of seeing these 

 houses in March last, when the bunches in two of them were loaded ; the 

 one house with the berries set and swelling, and the other with the blossoms 

 beginning to open. As soon as the berries have fairly begun to swell, the 

 weights are removed. The rationale of this system we do not pretend to 

 know, unless it be the same principle of pressure which seems to facilitate 

 the rooting of a cutting, and the protrusion of spongioles from the root of a 

 cabbage plant, when applied to their lower extremities. 



1285. Growing grapes in pots. — The only utility of growing grapes in 

 pots where there are plenty of hothouses, is to have a few to ripen in March 

 and April. West's St. Peter's, or the sort cultivated by Mr. Oldaker and 

 Mr. Paxton as such, (G. M., vol. ii., p. 174, and vol. xiii., p„ 96) if properly 

 managed, will hang in good condition till the end of February, or, in some 

 seasons, till March ; in short, as Dr. Lindley observed, when commenting 

 on some grapes of this variety, exhibited by Mr. Paxton, on January l7th, 

 1837, it is "decidedly the best winter grape known." Where there is 



