1877. ] 
THE PITH OP VINES. 
07 
accretion and elaboration. When these work into each other, like the opposite 
teeth of the cog-wheels driving machinery, then the proportion of pith to wood 
is mostly correct in regard to quantity, and of the highest quality; but let 
more food be absorbed than is or can be elaborated, and an excess of pith is one 
of the immediate results of the upset of the constitutional balance between these 
two workers. If this be so, may not the incessant removal of growing shoots 
and leaves have a good deal to do with the growth of too much ^lith in grape¬ 
vines ? Growth is an expending function; it takes of things provided by the 
roots, and converts them into wood, leaves, tendrils, and fruit. In our anxiety to 
force all the strength of food, about to be used up and exhausted on new or more 
wood, into the fruit, may we not weaken the vine, and outwit ourselves, by 
forcing an undue development of pith ? 
But then it would also seem that the growth of pith is partly constitutional, 
geographical, geological, and climatical. As to the first, experience can almost 
authenticate the fact that each Vine has its specific amount of pith. The rela¬ 
tive ratio of pith to wood varies in Hamburghs, Muscadines, Muscats, Syrians, 
Alicantes, Trebbianos, Lady Downe’s, &c. Not only the amount of pith, but its 
quality, and even colour, seem slightly to vary in each variety. 
Again, the same Vines from different districts, counties, countries, differ in 
the relative proportion of pith to wood. It is needful to adopt this exact 
formula, because merely to say that Vines grown over a wide geographical area 
differed in the amount of their pith might mean anything or nothing—as, for 
instance, that the size or specific gravity of the wood of the Vine varied in 
different countries. But it will be observed by those experienced in vine-wood, 
that the pith varies relatively to the size of the wood, and in different varieties, 
in a very marked manner, within distances of comparatively few miles. 
Geological formations affect the pith of Vines, even more than geographical 
distances. Of course, the two are also often found acting together. But perhaps the 
soil is the most potential influence in determining the amount and quality of the 
pith of Vines. I hope my friends Mr. Ingram, of Belvoir, Mr. Tillery, of 
Welbeck, Mr. Cramb, of Tortworth—who have made this matter an especial 
study, as far as the influence of lime on Vines is concerned—and other experi¬ 
enced vine-growers may give their experience on this point, namely, the effect of 
geological strata, or of surface-soils, or of both, on the pith of the grape-vine. 
The effects of climate on pith must of course be close and potential, if the 
supposition be true that an excess of pith may be largely owing to a disarranged 
balance between absorption and elaboration; or in other words, the absorption of 
food and its conversion into plant-substance or products. Light, and to a lesser 
extent, heat, being the chief transforming agents, of course the respective amounts 
of hard wood, soft pith, good fruit, or plump buds produced in a given time or 
season, must ever be of variable quality and quantity, as the active agents in their 
production are strong or weak, unobstructed by cloud or vapour, or otherwise. 
Climatic changes resolve themselves chiefly into differences of temperature, light, 
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