the flower abortive. But it often happens, that after the inpregnation has taken place, and the fruit is formed, it detaches itself from the little footstalks which attach it to the bunch, and disappears. This is the effect of a vegetation too active, or sap too abundant. The sap, carried with violence and rapidity to the very delicate parts of the bunch, does not give time to the embryo fruit to appropriate it, but forces them off as it were by the effect of a spontaneous impulsion, and replaces them by changing and prolonging itself into wood. This theory is proved to be correct, by carefully making an outlet for the sap, on the wood bearing a new shoot, in such a way, that the wood may not be injured, and that the sap may not flow too quickly, which is done by carefully cutting off a small piece of bark, and replacing it with a piece of thread; the shoot close to it, will bring its grapes to perfection, although all the others on the same plant should prove abortive, and this, because the force of the sap was diminished by the operation. Unhappily, this requires a degree of minuteness, which makes it inapplicable on a large scale, but it points out the caution which ought to be exercised, in stopping the shoots, at the critical season of the vines flowering.
The vine, though uninjured by the frost or
