The Best Time for Pruning Grapes. 269 



THE BEST TIME FOR PRUNING GRAPES. 



By Addison Kelley, Kelley's Island, Ohio. 



I HAVE read the various articles in Tilton's Journal of Horticulture 

 in regard to the pruning of grape vines. I do not propose to theorize 

 upon the subject, but to give the experience of twenty years for what 

 it is worth. At first I supposed that it was improper to trim in the 

 spring, when they bled the worst, the Germans, whom I mostly em- 

 ployed, having a prejudice against it. But sometimes some parts of the 

 vineyard were trimmed at this supposed improper time. 



The closest observation I was able to make discovered no bad re- 

 sult, and I have never seen that it made any difference when the vines 

 were trimmed, from the time the leaves were ripe in the fall to as late 

 as the 20th of June. I seldom get all my vines trimmed before the 

 first of June. 



Since we have had the rot, I have in some vineyards tried leaving 

 the three canes the full length until August, when, if no rot appeared, 

 I cut off" the surplus wood, but if the rot set in, have left the whole 

 vine, and got a larger yield than from vines short pruned. But where 

 there was little or no rot, the shortest pruned vines have uniformly 

 borne the best crops. I am clearly of opinion that the best time to 

 trim is whenever it is most convenient after the leaf is dead in the fall 

 to the first of June. 



I have always root-pruned pretty severely, ploughirig deep close up 

 to the vine, and cutting the roots in the first hoeing in the spring in 

 most of my vineyards ; but I have also tried the reverse, and must 

 confess I have not been able to see much, if any, difference in the re- 

 sults. There are now some seven to eight hundred acres here in bear- 

 ing. Some persons think that spring trimming is best, but do not 

 claim that they have any facts to prove it. It is true that some parts 

 of vineyards have been trimmed in the fall, and did not bear as well 

 as the part trimmed in the spring, but the reverse is also sometimes 



