TRAINING GRAPE VINES 313 



same time providing for wood growth for the following year's 

 fruiting by cutting 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 bearing 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 unsatis- 

 factory. 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 fruitful 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 \y 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 vigorously. 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 pruners, and can be carried out much more 

 perfectly than the first method with ordinary labor. 



