462 - QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Junxr, 1898. 
Viticulture. 
PRUNING. 
By E. H. RAINFORD, 
Viticultural Expert. 
THE necessity of a correct system of pruning is one of the first considerations 
in Viticulture; it is one of the points upon which hang the success of the 
vineyard, the quality of the wine produced, and the welfare of the vigneron, 
Incorrect pruning carries with it a double effect—firstly, upon the quantity and 
quality of the grapes afterwards produced, and, secondly, the value of the wine 
made from them. In other fruit trees an incorrect system of pruning will give 
a small crop or an inferior quality of fruit, but there the matter ends. Not go 
with grapes if intended for wine-making; an inferior grape, which for table 
purposes would have found a market at a depreciated value, will, when turned 
into wine, make a beverage which will require the addition of sugar and forti- 
fying to keep sound and be drinkable, or else it will prove unsaleable. A vine 
pruned on rational principles should produce grapes with sufficient saccharine 
matter to make a wine that can be drunk pure and unfortified. 
A correct system of pruning, again, has a considerable influence on the 
prevention of fungus attacks, inasmuch as an insufficiently pruned vine, With 
a superabundance of weakly shoots and bunches, falls an easy prey to disease, 
There is no denying that many vignerons in the colony have given far tog 
little attention to this most important part of the cultivation of the vine, and 
undoubtedly a good deal of the disease affecting vines may be traced to it. Tt 
is true enough that our climate is answerable for a great deal, but, knowing 
that, it should be the aim of the vigneron to keep his vines in as vigorous and 
healthy a condition as possible, to be able to resist fungus attacks, and this 
can only be attained by a proper system of pruning. Some people seem to 
think that a vine can be left almost to itself—at any rate, with but a smal 
amount of pruning—being deceived, no doubt, by the growth and vigour 
displayed by the young vine for the first few years of its life. But what is 
the result? or a year or two there are huge crops; the vigour of the plant 
making supreme efforts to carry the grapes, but later on strength fails,and stunted 
shoots, weakly small bunches, diseased and rotting, tell a tale of exhaustion 
and decline. It would have been far better for him had he contented himself 
with moderate crops at first, as they would have continued year after year, and 
he would not have had the pain of seeing his vines sickly and exhausted. Tt is 
the old story of killing the goose, &e. If a man will from the first prune hig 
vines systematically and content himself with a reasonable crop, his vineyard 
will live to a good old age, but if his greed tempts him to impoverish his vines 
in their youth by insufficient pruning they will have a short life. 
TIME FOR PRUNING. 
The vine should not be pruned before the new wood has well summered 
and the sap has ceased to flow—two points of easy ascertainment; they 
should not be pruned after the sap has begun to move in the spring, unless for 
a special purpose. One purpose to be attained by doing so is to prevent injury 
by frost to young shoots of early-sprouting varieties, in districts where late 
frosts are to be apprehended. By pruning the vine when the sap is on the 
move, and the eyes are beginning to swell, the expansion is checked by as much 
as a fortnight in some cases, and injury by late frosts avoided. Some are of 
opinion that late pruning does not harm the vine. It is true that in many 
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