June 5. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
159 
bursting of the buds, and the growing of the shoots. 
This, however, could not be the reason in our corres¬ 
pondent’s case. 
Perspicuously as our Subscriber has stated his case, 
there is one important part which he has wholly omitted, 
namely, pruning, and preparations made for pruning; 
a matter of no great importance in itself, but becoming 
of first-rate import when taken in connection with other 
circumstances. I have Vines—it matters little how I 
choose to prune them—long rod, short rod, spurred to a 
bud, or the shoots all cut close into the stem, and fresh 
bearing shoots allowed to come from the incipient 
latent, and, before they break, invisible buds. Under any 
or all of these modes, there is sure to be a great deal 
more fruit shown than it would be prudent to let half 
or even a fourth of it remain. I have other Vines, 
that were I to persevere, as I have sometimes tried, to 
cut or prune on the spurring or cutting close principle, 
I might call for bunches, and call again; but they would 
not come ! 
Some of these Vines, demanding such different treat¬ 
ment, are in the same house, and receive, as respects tem¬ 
perature, &c., exactly the same management; but those 
that I may cut and prune in almost any way, and not miss 
a crop, are planted near the surface, with a deep drain in 
front; and a little encouragement in the way of mulch¬ 
ing, &c., tends to keep all the young rootlets, or at least 
a good share of them, near the surface. The others 
that will not stand this spurring system are older Vines, 
whose roots are much deeper. Many of these, from 
lifting the points of the main roots, and also from 
mulchings and protecting the borders in winter, have 
been induced to point their rootlets upwards; but on 
the whole, the main part of the roots are so deep, 
and liable to be extra moist, that instead of the 
elaborated fructifying juices being diffused, as in 
the above case, over the whole plant, it is stored 
up chiefly in the best-swelled and the best-ripened 
buds. Hence, Vines that were next to failures 
when pruned upon the spur principle, were fruitful 
enough when grown and pruned upon either the long 
rod or the short rod system. The youngest be¬ 
ginner may satisfy himself of the likelihood of this, by 
inspecting the buds upon a short bearing shoot or on 
a long rod. In either case, the buds near the base of 
the shoot will be found very small and puny in compa¬ 
rison with the buds farther on, which often increase in 
size as the shoot lengthens. Now, when you cut back 
such a shoot to a spur, you remove all the best swelled 
and matured buds at once. We have seen that 
this does not signify when the roots are all freed 
from stagnant water, and near the influence of the sun’s 
rays; but when circumstances are the reverse, these 
fine swelled buds will be the ones to rely upon, and the 
modes of growth and pruning must be altered accord¬ 
ingly, if the Vines are to be retained and allowed to 
remain in their present circumstances. 
Generally, in such circumstances, it will be advisable 
to adopt the successional rod system, leaving two or three 
rods to the length of the rafter, which, of course, will 
necessitate removing an old stem every season when 
the system is fully established. With the roots of Vines 
not in the most favourable circumstances, deep, and not 
over well drained, I have seen good crops produced by 
the rod system, more especially when the foliage on 
these rods when growing was exposed to all the light 
possible, and a drier and higher temperature was ob¬ 
tained in autumn by means of a little additional firing. 
I have tried, in sifeh circumstances, to concentrate the 
fruit-producing matter at the base of the young shoots, by 
gradually, during the summer and autumn, disbudding 
the buds from the axils of the leaves, so as to leave one 
or two only at the base, and though this was attended 
with advantage, the results were not so satisfactory as 
when the rod system was adopted. It will be at once 1 
apparent, that on the rod system, the chief thing, during 
summer, in which it will differ from the spurring- I 
system, is attending to the side-shoots only so far as j 
will be necessary for the fruit upon them, but directing 
the merely growing powers of the plant chiefly into the 
rods, removing all side-shoots gradually without fruit, 
so as not too greatly to check the roots; and also all side- 
slioots as soon as the fruit is cut, that all possible 
vigour, and all possible sunlight be obtained by the 
rods or shoots designed for fruiting the following year. 
As illustrative of these Vines, I will mention two 
facts out of many. In a somewhat low, narrow-roofed 
Vinery, in which the Vines had been long planted, and 
roots, as might be supposed, had gone to a considerable 
depth, good crops were obtained every year upon the 
one rod, or what might be called the Hoare system of 
training and pruning; one shoot being trained from 
bottom to top this year, fruiting all the way up next 
year, one shoot taken up from the bottom, and all the 
others stopped, and the fruiting shoot, with all its side- 
shoots, cut away when the fruit was gathered; the shoot 
of this summer fruiting again the succeeding year. 
This Vinery came under the charge of a young gardener, 
a thorough systematarian, that is, one who allowed a 
system to control him, rather than being at the trouble 
to control and bend a system to circumstances. He 
looked upon spurring Vines as the very acme of Vine 
management, and seeing nice, strongish side-shoots, 
from which the fruit was not all removed, he resolved to 
spur them back, and in doiug so, as there was not room 
for the stems, the young shoot carefully tended in the 
summer, was, like the others, cut back to a bud. Now 
for the result. Instead of some two hundred bunches, 
ho did not get ten in the house. Not to be beaten, 
he tried it again, and carefully disbudded the shoots in 
summer, but though the success was greater, it was not 
at all satisfactory. The year following the rod system 
was again tried, and with perfect success. In another 
year, he fresh drained a portion of the border, under¬ 
mined the roots, and elevated them within nine inches 
of the surface, and that part so operated upon, he could 
prune and cut the tops just as he liked, and the cutting 
off numbers of extra bunches was a more pleasant 
occupation than vainly sighing and grumbling on 
account of their absence. 
The other case to which I would refer, is that of a 
greenhouse Vinery, the border of which had been made 
by a keen amateur, according to my own directions, as 
to bottoming, slope, depth, mulching, &c. The Vines were 
managed upon the spur system. For years they did 
admirably, but the bearing powers of the Vines began in 
time to fail, the bunches becoming fewer and smaller, 
though there was no decrease, quite the contrary, in the 
luxuriance of the growth. I was again consulted, and 
advised examining the front of the border at the end of 
autumn, and to try and raise the roots, for at least a part 
of their length, nearer the surface. This, however, was 
objected to as tiresome and disagreeable, and hints 
were breathed that even the most costly pavement at 
bottom would not have been objected to, at first, to 
prevent the roots getting down, though I well recollect ! 
that the cart loads of rough rubble that were got were 
looked upon with something like dread, even on the score 
of cartage alone. However, it is little use telling a man 
these reminiscences when he is a little in the dumps; 
so another course was recommended and acted upon. 
The. vinery could scarcely be said to be forced. The 
border got a good covering in winter of litter, alike to 1 
keep it dry, when semi-thatched, and to encourage, by j 
the warmth, roots to come near the surface. Next ! 
season, all the shoots that had fruit were stopped at the 
joint above, in the usual way, and those that had no 
fruit were stopped a little shorter. Two were selected 
