TRAINING TEE VINE. 137 



may be sure, therefore, that if at the West, where the vineyards 

 arc most abundant, — I speak of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and the 

 centres of the grape-growing region, — the price is five cents a 

 pound ; on this eastern coast, where the price of wine is so much 

 higher, you will always find a market for your grapes at ten 

 cents a pound. 



I said there was such a thing as a little wise neglect in grape- 

 growing. We are counselled by all writers on the subject, to 

 train them in a particular fashion, — some with horizontal arms, 

 some with a straight stem upon a pole, to be spurred, some to 

 be cropped the whole length of that stem upon one pole, while 

 a new one grows this year on another pole, to be cropped next 

 year ; and all of these methods are successful, but some of them 

 require so much skill and care as to- be difficult to pursue ; and 

 some of them, especially the horizontal arm-training, leads you 

 occasionally to such a loss of spurs, in consequence of the sap 

 having to traverse that horizontal branch of wood that you have 

 to cut back very nearly to the beginning, in order to get a new 

 arm — losing, of course, one year's crop. I would grow a single 

 stem, high enough from the ground to facilitate the culture 

 about the grape. If I had an espalier, which I think the best, 

 I would let that single stem reach to the lower bar of the 

 espalier, say eighteen inches from the ground. From that 

 lower bar I would lead arms right and left, at an angle of forty- 

 five degrees, until they reached the top of the espalier, which 

 should be six feet from the ground. You have, then, a vine in 

 the shape of the letter Y. The main stem which reaches to the 

 lower bar of the espalier, is never to be allowed to have any 

 spurs or any branches. Those side arms will have spurs, and 

 those spurs will be pruned annually to about three eyes. You 

 see, then, that at the end of the year, when you have done your 

 pruning, you will have two diagonal arms upon the espalier, 

 with spurs to each, at the usual distance of about nine or ten 

 inches, which spurs, being new wood, the current wood, which 

 bears fruit next year, will have a branch from -each eye, and 

 each branch will give two or three bunches of grapes. That is 

 the simplest method, and continues from year to year, without 

 difficulty. When you come to the next year's pruning, each 

 one of those spurs of the preceding year will have had three 

 branches. In pruning for that year, you will cut out wholly 



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