88 
prize, it is highly requisite they should be thin- 
ned out, and that as early as possible, alter 
the same manner that a gardener docs his 
forced grapes, in a grapery or hot-house. 1 
shall name Gorton’s Champion of England as 
a sort that })roduces a large quantity of pips, if 
the plant hr^^t been sulfered to breed off- 
sets, ^ is a tine healthy old plant : this 
large plant may produce you from thirty to 
thirty-five pips, if the whole were suffered to 
blossom. So soon as the truss has risen out 
of the heart about half an inch or so, then 
you may begin to thin out ; get a piece of 
hard wood, viz. box or yew-tree, reduce it to 
the size of a small skewer, with a sharp point, 
or a piece of stout wire, placed in a stick, filed 
sharp, might answer equally well; with this 
instrument, or a pair of tweesers, you must 
pick out three or four pips every day, or every 
other day, and more particularly out of the 
middle part of the truss ; but if you omit this 
opportunity, and suffer the stem to get neaidy 
to its height, you may thin them out with a 
pair of scissars, but their points for this pur- 
pose must be both alike. This large truss of 
flowers is to be gradually reduced to the num- 
ber of ten or eleven, thirteen, or not more by 
any means than fifteen pips. I have always 
