TRAINING GRAPES IN EASTERN AMERICA 143 



The vines should stand six or eight feet apart, depending on 

 the variety, and one cane is left, three or four feet long, on 

 each spur when the pruning is done. Shoots springing from 

 these cover intermediate spaces soon after growth begins. 

 Provision, of course, must be made for a new cane each season, 

 and this is done by saving a shoot springing from spur or trunk 

 at pruning time. 



The same method of training, with modifications to suit the 

 case, may be employed on sides of buildings, walls, fences and 

 lattices. If the object to be covered is low, however, and 

 especially if fruit as well as a covering is wanted, perhaps a 

 better plan is annually to renew from a low trunk or even back 

 to the root. In this low renewal, a new cane, or two or three 

 if desired, should be brought out each season, thus securing 

 greater vigor for the vine, but greatly delaying, especially 

 in the case of high walls, the production of a screen of foliage. 



Pruning and Training Muscadine Grapes 



The Muscadine grapes of the South are so distinct in charac- 

 ters of growth and fruit-bearing that their requirements as 

 to pruning and training are quite different from the methods 

 so far given. Until recent years when these grapes have be- 

 come of commercial importance, it was thought by southern 

 vineyardists that the Muscadines needed little or no pruning 

 and some held that pruning injured the vines. Now it is 

 found that Muscadines respond quite as readily as other types 

 of grapes to pruning and training. Husmann and Bearing ^ 

 give following directions for pruning Muscadines : 



"Two systems of training are employed with Muscadine 

 grapes: (1) The horizontal or overhead system, by which the 

 growth is spread as an overhead canopy about 7 feet above the 



1 Husmann, George C, and Bearing, Charles. Muscadine Grapes. 

 Bui. 709, U. S. Dept. Agr.: 16-19. 1916. 



