Pruning and Training the Vine. 



95 



Fig. 8 shows the style of treUis I use. It is also the one in general use in 

 vineyards in the Hudson River grape region, having superceded the Fuller 

 style on thousands of acres. It is what is popularly known as the Kniffin 

 trellis. My lower wire is three and one-half feet from the ground, and the 

 top one five and one-half feet, but this is a matter each one can regulate for 

 himself. A very desirable feature which recommends it to me is the facility 

 aflforded of readily passing under it from one row to another. While the 

 fruit on the lower wire fails to get the etTect, beneficial or otherwise, of the 

 radiation of heat from the ground that it would if lower, my theory is, that 

 it gets a better circulation of air and is less liable to mildew and rot, though 

 I have had enough of both these light afflictions (?) for two years past to sat- 

 isfy my desires in that direction for all time to come. 



Fig. 8. 



The Kniffin system of training and pruning is, as is shown in the vine on 

 the left of the figure, to start two arms at the first wire and two at the top 

 wire, rubbing off" all buds between and below the wires, except the four 

 needed for the arms. 



If the vine has made a good growth the first season it should be cut off 

 just above the lower wire. A bud on each side is trained along this wire for 

 the lower pair of arms, continuing the top bud on the top wire, rubbing off 

 all others. Why not cut it oti' at the top wire and grow all arms at once? 

 you ask. Because, if cut there the strongest arms would be there, and you 

 might fail to get good ones at the lower wire; but if cut at the lower one j^ou 

 are sure of good arms there to start with, which you are not sure of in the 

 other case. 



My theory is, and sometimes I have had the facts to prove it, that, owing 

 to the natural tendency of the sap to the top, as heretofore alluded to, its 

 course being unobstructed up through one cane, it would not stop in suffi- 

 cient quantity at the lower arms to supply them with their due share, but 

 hastening on to the top, where it must stop, results in giving the strongest 

 wood growth at that point. To avoid, that, I grow the two canes the second 

 season, as heretofore stated, from near the ground, and divide the current of 



