36 



PRUNING VINES. 



go on, tlie vines, instead of going to rest as they ought, 

 will make a sort of supplementary season's growth, and 

 will assert their right to rest at the period when they 

 should be starting into growth. Many failures in early 

 forcing may be traced to want of attention to this ap- 

 parently trifling cause. 



PRUNING VINES. 



As will be seen by a reference to fig. 6, the only bud 

 left to produce fruit the following season is the one at 

 the base of the lateral shoot ; and I prefer a pair of 

 pruning-scissors to a knife for the operation of pruning. 

 Those I use have a sort of back-action, and cut as 

 Fig. 6. clean as a knife. My objection 



to the knife is that, unless it is 

 used with care, the half-inch of 

 wood left beyond the bud is 

 often split by its action, and the 

 bud sufiers in consequence ; but 

 this is a matter that care can 

 easily avoid. 



When vines are vigorous they 

 not unfrequently bleed copiously 

 when forcing commences, though 

 they may have been pruned 

 months before. This is a clear- 

 ly recognised evil, and many 

 compositions have been recom- 

 mended for preventing bleed- 

 ing. Nearly all these I have tried, but none of them 

 answered the purpose. I have now discovered a styptic 

 which is so perfectly successful that I can, by its use, 

 prune a house of vines in March, dress the wounds with 



