Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/64

24 plants cultivated in our gardens, the fruit of the cultivated vine seems of a different nature from that which grows wild in the fields. The influence of culture even extends to compensate, in a certain degree, the defects of climate, as the cultivated grape attains its maturity in a higher latitude by seven degrees, than where the wild vine ripens its austere and diminutive fruit.

Varied as the vine is, by so many natural causes, it is not surprising that it should also be sensible to the effects of culture. A vine of an excellent variety, abandoned to itself, would produce an enormous quantity of grapes the first year, but they would with difficulty ripen, and their quality would be inferior. The following year it would send out more numerous and more feeble shoots, and the fruit would be increased in proportion, but in the same proportion also would its size be diminished—year after year would alter its qualities, till nothing remained to distinguish it from the wilding of the hedge.

To prevent this degeneration, it is necessary that it should be pruned, and the manner of pruning the vine has its influence on the wine. The greater the number of branches left on a stock, the greater will be the abundance of grapes, but the more inferior will be the quality of the wine, and the shorter will be the period of the vine's life.