We hope to add a few words to those in which Mr. S. Miller, in your June number, expresses his interest in the culture of the grape. At this time, when not only plums, apricots, and nectarines, but our peaches and cherries are affected by successive and serious diseases, we turn to other fruits, hoping that we may find some which, by moderate care, can be guarded from the inroads of inscrutable disorders.

"Mr. M. asks, " Do we not sometimes work and trim too much? " We reply, that there is a vast deal of labor performed which cannot be dignified with the title of work in any useful sense. An immense amount of toil is expended upon the grape vines of the United States which is not only useless, but positively hurtful. As to trimming, we reply that if that work be employed in its proper sense, there is no person who does "trim too much." But let us say that a vast deal of the hacking and hewing of our vines in the winter, and of the pinching and cutting of our branches, leaves, etc. in the summer, is too disgraceful to be called trimming.

People forget that all the portions of the vine, roots, stem, branches and leaves, grow naturally in precisely the correct relative proportion to each other. People forget that it is only because man has brought most of the fruits into an artificial condition, that he needs to regulate the growth or proportion of the several constituents of the plants.

One man of our acquaintance, while amputating by the cord, remarked, that "whatever was worth doing at all was worth doing well." In this we agreed with him; but in the meaning of the word well, we differed. With him pruning well meant cutting off three-fourths or nine-tenths of the results of last season's growth; with us it means judiciously lessening the quantity of wood, so as exactly to balance the vegetative powers of the roots, and so that the reproductive strength may not be too much taxed by an excessive exhibition of fruit. The leaves are the lungs of the plant, and it is well known to be the return sap which ministers both to the growth of the plant and to the perfection of the fruit. Lessen too much the breathing surface of the leaves, and the grapes suffer a consumption before their maturity.

Our theory for pruning is simply this; because we have not in our cities, in our villages, or even on most of our farms, the requisite unappropriated space to allow to the vine its natural growth, we must regulate that growth and retain it within the space that we do possess, with two objects in view:

1. The health of the vine.

2. The maximum product of good fruit.

The remarks of Mr. Campbell, in the September number of the Horticulturist, are so exactly to our mind, as to supersede much we were about to say* on this subject of pruning.

Mr. Miller's questions we take pleasure in replying to, and if we err hope that he will treat it with the leniency with which we know that he is accustomed to treat those who differ from him in some opinions. Mr. Miller's first question is: " Where does the exact point end of foxiness or fragrance and aroma commence?" Mr. Miller says " I love the smell of a rank fox grape. We think that the foxiness ends just where we begin to like the grape, and where no unpleasant reminiscence, flavor, astringency, acidity, or puckeriness is left after eating the grapes. A grape that we don't like is apt to be foxy in proportion to our distaste for it. Our opinion is that foxiness exists to its superlative extent, as Mr. M. says," in the forest;" that it extends through all the wild grapes of the woods, Charter Oak, Early Amber, and dozens of others in a gradually lessening series, until it reaches that culmination of excellence, the Diana, where no trace whatever of any such thing is to be perceived.

The second question is as to deep culture, etc. All vegetable organization and growth is supported by the appropriation of sufficient pabulum, by means of the roots to give to the ascending sap a strength superior to simple water. "Our old residents of the forest do not run their roots down," because they dislike to go down deep into a shaded and undrained subsoil which has lain undisturbed for centuries; and they peculiarly affect the only warm and well aerated soil which is within their reach, viz., that which is "close to the surface under the leaves." In this position, also, the carbon of the decomposing leaves is a manure, and a right stimulating manure, too, to every pore and cell of stalk, leaves or fruit. These same old vines taken out from the forest, and all their roots placed in a deep, rich, loose, well-drained border, will make more wood, and more and finer fruit than they ever did before: provided they have the same space for their branches and leaves to spread upon.

As to the "young vines that have been set out in May," they will send their fibrous roots where the soil is warmed by the beams of the summer's sun, and where they can appropriate the ammonia brought by showers from the atmosphere. They know as well as we, that this ammonia is absorbed by the first soil with which the water brings it in contact, and they seek that stratum of earth with every possible fibril; because the very spot and the " border a foot wide" that they are planted in is shaded by their own leaves, and the broad surface of their own foliage so sheds the water off, that the surface of the ground, a short distance from the plant, will be moister, warmer, and better supplied with ammonia than immediately around their own stems. As to Mr. Miller's " border 5 feet wide and 3 feet deep." It is an old Latin proverb, that so far as the branches of trees or plants ascend into the air, so far in the search after nourishment do the roots spread themselves in the fair bosom of the fertile earth.

Now, even though we take the sayings of the Roman sages with due grains of allowance we all must know that grape vines with branches extending to 20 or 30 feet in length, will not submit to have their roots confined to a border of only 3 or 5 feet in width, no matter how fertile it may be made with the old boots of a nation or the old mortar of half a city, unless to that fertility we add in some way an ammoniated moisture suited to the necessities of the plant.

The fibrils of the roots go seeking whatever the plant requires, and while they will not place themselves in stagnant water, or impervious subsoil, they will not long hesitate with the query whether the required nourishment is to be obtained by progressing laterally or perpendicularly, provided it is within their reach.