ON THE SHANKING OF GRAPES. 
403 
is acted upon in such a manner as will not unfrequently cause instant 
death, and which no practical skill or attention can avert. We cannot 
witness this circumstance without great surprise ; and the more the 
subject is attended to, the greater is the mystery. How can such 
changes take place ? No sooner has a vine, loaded with fruit, passed 
this period, than it again commences its former mode of growing, and 
as the fruit requires less support the growth increases. It has been 
asserted that shanking proceeds from a weak state of the vine. I can¬ 
not disprove this, it being a common observation that every kind of 
vine grown in this kingdom has its peculiarities, and is acted upon in 
different ways, and at different periods, by this disease ; and so is every 
species of tree that bears its fruit in clusters j—we observe it in the 
currant, in the raspberry, and in numbers of others; and I fear that 
the cultivators of the grape in warmer latitudes know too well the 
effects of its ravages. 
Few gentlemen have paid so much attention to the vine as my pre¬ 
sent employer for the last forty years; but I do not hesitate to say 
that, at this time, he is as unprepared or undecided to give an opinion 
as he was at the above period; for, although he has repeatedly devoted 
a portion of his premises to experiments, and spared neither pains nor 
expense, the matter is yet unrevealed. I have, in conjunction with 
neighbours, made trials of a course of dry treatment, while, at the 
same time, they pursued a contrary one ; and this course each has 
reversed, and nil without arriving at any decisive conclusion. We 
have likewise reduced the crops of some vines to one-half or one-third 
per tree, without coming to the sought-for secret. 
I have derived the utmost satisfaction from the experiments lately 
made by Mr. Paxton, in not thinning the bunches of the smaller sorts, 
and particularly the Frontignans, as Mr. Paxton always found that, 
whenever a bunch had been accidentally left unthinned, it was found 
to perfect its berries better than those bunches that were thinned. 
Mr. P. moreover states, that an unthinned crop of this year arrived at 
the greatest perfection. 
Whether the berries derive benefit from their sides being in contact, 
or whether the thinning produces a check to their growth, I will not 
pretend to state; but whoever will leave a few bunches unthinned , 
will be able to judge for themselves how far thinning is judicious. 
I remain, &c., yours. Geo. Stafford. 
Willersley, Sept. 29th. 
P. S.—It may be asked, Why do not grapes grown in the open air 
in this kingdom suffer from the malady of shanking, as those in houses 
