TREATMENT IN SUBSEQUENT YEARS 57 



swelling and plumping up well during the interval. 

 Repeat the operation after the vine (leading shoot) has 

 made a fresh growth of two feet, and so on till the 

 middle or end of September, by which time the main 

 growth will have reached the top of the rafters, thereby 

 securing a uniform thickness of rod and plumpness of 

 buds along the entire length of the individual canes, the 

 side shoots being stopped at the first and second joints 

 and kept pinched hard back at the latter point from 

 the beginning. 



Pruning the Vines. When the vines have shed their 

 leaves they may be pruned. If the canes are fairly 

 strong and well ripened, prune them back to within 

 six or seven feet from the bottom of the rafter, cutting 

 weak rods back to within three or four feet of that point, 

 and the side shoots hard back to within one inch of the 

 main stem as indicated by the cross-cut in Fig. 8. This 

 done, rub the loose bark off with the hands, and wash 

 the canes with a stiffish brush and soft soapy water into 

 which a handful of flowers of sulphur had been pre- 

 viously stirred. 



TREATMENT IN THE SECOND AND SUBSEQUENT YEARS 



This begins with the pruning and washing of the vines 

 in December or early in January ; the laterals or side shoots 

 being pruned back to the points marked by the cross-cuts 

 in Fig. 8, the lengths the main rods shall be cut back being 

 determined by the strength of each rod and the length of 

 rafter to be furnished. Assuming the length of rafter to 

 be nineteen feet, strong well-ripened canes may be cut 

 back to within fourteen or fifteen feet of the bottom of 

 the rafters, or they may be left eighteen feet long and be 

 cropped accordingly. It is a waste of time and valuable 

 space to follow the old method of establishing a house of 

 bearing vines by simply cutting back the vines the first 

 year after planting to within three or four feet of the 



