Page:Cyclopaedia, Chambers - Supplement, Volume 2.djvu/719

 V I N

V I N

The bearing (hoots for the following year fhould be left at the pruning with four eyes each. The under one of thefe does not bear, and confequently there are only three which do. Many leave more eyes on the fhoots, that they may have more fruit, which is the confequence ; but then the fruit is much poorer ; and this is fo well known in the wine countries, that there are laws to direct that no more than fuch a number of eyes are to be left on each fhoot, for the grapes would elfe be of a poor juice, and deftroy the reputation of their wine. Each of the three eyes left, will produce two or three bunches; fo that each (hoot will give fix or nine bunches, which is as much as it can bring to any perfection. Thefe moots muft be laid in at about eighteen inches afunder on the wall; for if 'they are 'clofer, when the fide-fhoots are produced, there will be no room to train them in upon the wall ; and the largenefs of the leaves of the Vine requires alfo that the fhoots ihould be at a proportionable diftance.

The baft feafon for pruning Vitus is the end of September, or beginning of October. The cut is always to be made juft above the eye, and Hoped backward from it, that if it bleed, the juice may not run upon the bud; and where there is an opportunity of cutting down fome young fhoots to two eyes, to produce vigorous fhoots for the next year's bearing, it mould always be done. In May, when the Vines are mooting, they fhould be looked over, and all the fhoots from the old wood fhould be rubbed off, as alfo the weaker, whenever there are two produced from one eye. During the month of May the branches muft be nailed up againft the wall as they moot, and toward the latter end of this month, the ends of the bearing branches mould be nipped off, which will greatly ftrengthcn the fruit. Thofe, however, which are to bear the next year, ihould not be flopped before the beginning of July. When the fruit is all gathered, the Vines mould be pruned, whereby the litter of their leaves is all removed at once, and the fruit will be forwarder for this the fucceeding year. Mil- ler's Gardener's Diet.

The Vine is one of the trees mod liable to be injured by frofts with us; its trunk is often fplit in frofty weather, and that

i moft frequently when it ftands in the warmeft afpects. In the year 1683, the great froft fplit almoft all our timber-trees; but this was owing to defects in them, by which the fap wa= detained in very large quantities in particular places, from their being wind-Ihaken, coltie, or otherwife diftempered ; but the Vines fuffered the fame accident, feemingly from another caufe.

Thofe Vines were moft fplit this year, which were ex- pofed to a fouth afpedt, and planted againft the warmeft walls. The fun, their ufual friend, now proved their enemy, and daily thawing the fap in the trunk, it was again frozen every night. This often bending and unbending, foftcning and hardening the vivid fpirituous juice of this plant, deftroyed it. and the fap, being the fame year difordered, and not gradually feafoned, but even ftopped before Michaelmas-day, and the frefh fap wholly detained by the fucceeding frofts from arifing, the frozen and hard earth alfo denying its juices, even though the veffels of the plant had been in a condition to receive them ; the trunks and branches of the Vines were filled only with a'thin, watery, and mortified fap, and this moft of it extravafated by the burfting of the veffels it was frozen in, many of them fuffered as much as if cut off from the root. Thus perilhed the greater part of the Vines expofed to the fun's action ; while the other, which ftood in more fhady places, not having their juices thawed. and frozen daily, fuffered but one change, and often efcaped. It was alfo obferved this year, that the red grap-trees efcaped in general much better than the white, being hardier than they. Other wall -trees, containing vifcous juices, efcaped very well, while the Vines thus fuffered, even though expofed in the fame manner. Among others, the plums, apricots, peaches, and wall-cherries, had very little damage. It is eafy to conceive why plants with vifcous juices fhould fuffer lefs by froft, than thofe with more thin ones ; and we fee that this is the cafe between thefe two forts of trees, the plums, &c. often exfu- dating their juices in form of gum-arabic ; but the Vines, when they throw out any, fhew that theirs is as thin as common wa- ter. The different kinds of trees have, doubtlefs, all their different confiftences in their juices; and it may have princi- pally been owing to that diverfity in others, as well as in the plum and Vine, that fome efcape, while others perifh by frofts. Phil. Tranf. N°. 165.

Vine GaUinfefl, an infect of the gattnfe ft ch($, principally found on the Vine, though capable of living on fome other trees, and fometimes found on them. It is much of the fame fhape, figure, and manner of life with the other animals of this clafs ; but differs from them in this ; that as they lay their eggs all under their body, and continue abfolutcly to cover them, till they are hatched ; thefe protrude them from their body, and they are found in prodigious abundance, lodged in a fort of cottony or filky bags all over the ftalks and branches of the Vines ; the dead animal is fometimes found covering them in part ; but more frequently they are abfolutely naked, and often are fo numerous as to appear like thin cobwebs hung one over ano- ther all over the Vine. See Tab. of Infcfits, N°. 32.

Thefe eggs might be eafily miftaken for thofe of fmall fpiders > they always hatch well, and come to maturity on the Vines they are found on; but if removed to others, they feldom come to any thing, which is very fingular, fince the Gallin^ feels of almoft all other trees may be removed and propagated either on the fame or on different trees. Thefe nefts of eggs, covered with down, and thus lodged on the Vine, are of no certain fhape or form ; fometimes they are convex and round- iih ; but that is not always the cafe, they flick to the fingers on touching, and are pulled away in fmall irregular threads ; if thefe are pulled away to any confiderable diftance, the eags come among them ; they are oblong, reddifh, and of fmooth mining furfaoes, and are amaffed in vaft numbers in the center of each of thefe little packets.

The infect, as it lays thefe eggs, directs them under its body toward its head, and thence downward toward the tail again j they are all arranged like the beads of a necklace, and make long chains or firings, thus directed, and running backward and forward with feveral finuofities ; and the cottony matter in which they are enveloped, is not like that of fpiders, pro- duced from certain particular organs appointed for the fpinning it, but fweats out, as it were, from every pore of the crea- ture's body ; but moft of all from its fides ; it feems to be pro- duced in extremely fmall and fhort filaments ; but, being of a vifcous nature, will draw out on the touch like glue or warm refin ; and long threads of it are originally formed by the courfe of the chains of eggs before defcribed, which take it up in their courfe, and form it into numerous threads of their own length, as it goes on.

Thefe Vine infects are of the boat-faftiioned kind ; but, befide thefe, there are fome other fpecies which lodge their eggs in a cottony neft of the fame kind. The common thorn affords a Charter and more convex kind that this does ; thefe are a very fmall fpecies ; others are fomething larger ; but the oak affords a fort equal in fize, if not exceeding thofe of the Vine ; fome of thefe are brown, others bluifh, and others reddifh ; and there are fome minute differences in their fhape. Reau- mur, Hift. Inf. Tom. 4. p. 61. Vine Grubs, in natural hiftory, a name given by fome authors to the pucerons, or little infects, which are ufually of a green colour, and are found often in prodigious numbers, flicking to the leaves of trees and plants, and to their young ftalks, Mr. Reaumur has been very curious in his mveftigation of the nature of this infect ; but its manner of propagating its fpecies was never clearly obferved, till Mr. Bonet difcovered it. Reaumur obferves, that in every family of pucerons, there are fome that have wings, and fome that have not ; and that, ac- cording to the ufual courfe of nature, the winged ones ihould be males, and the others females ; but, on the contrary, that both the winged and the unwiftged Vine-grubs are females, all being viviparous, and each kind producing a number of living young ; fo that the males of thefe pucerons were never difco- vered, even by that careful obferver ; nor could he ever find out what it was that impregnated the one and the other kind. He leaves us queries on this fubject, whether there is no copu- lation among them, and whether they are all hermaphrodites, each having in itfelf the organs of both fexes, as is the cafe in the river mufcles.

Mr. Bonet, in order to inform himfelf of the procefs of nature in thefe creatures, brought up one of them in perfect folitude from its birth ; he had an opportunity of obferving it in the place where it was kept, and watched it very ftrickly for ma- ny months together. At the end of twelve days this crea- ture, without having had any copulation with a male, began to breed. She produced in the whole ninety-five young ones, all alive, and conftantly under the eye of the obferver. This experiment was repeated feveral times with the fame fuccefs ; and, at length, repeated upon the young ones produced in this manner, and they were found to breed at the fame period, and in the fame manner with their parent, without having had any copulation with a male, as far as to the fourth genera- tion.

A hafty obferver would immediately conclude from this, that there was no copulation among the pucerons ; but farther en- quiry proves, that this" is not the cafe; for the fame obferver has found a fpecies of them in which there is copulation ; fo that both the winged and the unwinged kinds are truly females, and the male is a fmall fly, of a very different fhape, as is the cafe in regard to many other infects. This male is the moft falacious creature imaginable, copulating a vaft many times fucceffively, with the fame, and with different females. As this is the cafe in regard to one fpecies of this creature, it doubtlefs is fo alfo in regard to the reft, though that has not yet been obferved : And the fmgularity feems to be this, that after the male has copulated with the female, file not only be- comes prolific, bur her young ones are born ready impreg- nated, as far as to the fourth generation ; after which, probably, there is a neceffity for the copulation with the male again. There is another very fingular obfervation alfo in the pro- duction of the young pucerons ; the females are properly vivi- parous, and ufually bring forth live young ; but they fome- times produce only a fort of foetus's, which are laid in long feries one befide the other, as the caterpillar- eggs are laid by

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