LONG PRUNING OF VINES 309 



another cane from the same spur down to two or three buds. By this 

 practice the wood which has borne the fruit is cut back to a bud each 

 winter and the cane which has grown only wood is pruned long for 

 the fruit of the following summer. A modification of the practice is to 

 prune the canes from some of the spurs long, and from other spurs 

 short, thus making the spurs alternate from wood bearing to fruit bear- 

 ing from year to year. Unless some method is adopted to promote the 

 growth of strong canes from near the head of the vine, long pruning 

 becomes unsatisfactory. According to the common way with those 

 vines which are known to require longer canes for satisfactory bearing, 

 such canes are selected when the vine is well established and two, three, 

 four, or more canes four or five feet long are tied up vertically to a high 

 stake. This process is repeated the next year and the next, and the 

 result is, with the Sultanina at least, that after the second or third year 

 all the bearing wood is at the top of the stake, and the vine must be 

 pruned short again or suckers and watersprouts left as long canes. 

 Neither way is satisfactory. 



Two methods have been successfully used to insure the growth of 

 new fruit wood every year in a position where it can be utilized. The 

 first consists in bending the fruit canes into a circle. This diminishes 

 the tendency of the sap of the vine to go to the end of the fruit canes. 

 The consequence is that more shoots start in the lower parts of the fruit 

 canes. All the shoots on these canes are made weaker and more fruit- 

 ful by the bending, and at the same time the sap pressure is increased 

 and causes strong shoots to start from the wood-spurs left near the 

 bases of the fruit canes. These shoots are used for fruit canes at the 

 following winter pruning, and new wood spurs are then left for the 

 next year. 



The tying and bending of the fruit canes require great care, and 

 repeated suckering and removal of watersprouts are necessary to insure 

 a strong growth of replacing canes on the wood spurs. This method 

 can be used successfully only by skillful hands. 



The other method requires some form of trellis. The most prac- 

 ticable trellis is a wire stretched along the rows about 1^2 or 2 feet 

 above the surface of the soil. For very vigorous vines in rich soil a 

 second wire 12 inches above the first is advisable. 



The pruning is the same as for the method just described. The 

 fruit canes, however, instead of being bent in a circle and tied to the 

 stake, are placed in a horizontal position and tied to the wire. The 

 horizontal position has the same effect as curving in promoting the 

 starting of more shoots on the fruit canes and the consequent production 

 of more bunches of grapes. At the same time the buds on the wood 

 spurs are forced to start, and not being shaded they tend to grow vig- 

 orously. It is best to tie the shoots from the wood spurs in a vertical 

 position to the stake, and they should not be topped. This system of 

 pruning is not only theoretically correct, but is easy to explain to prun- 

 ers, and can be carried out much more perfectly than the first method 

 with ordinary labor. 



Whatever system of winter pruning is adopted with Sultanina, 

 careful summer pruning, suckering, sprouting, and topping are neces- 

 sary for the best results. This variety has a tendency to send out large 



