120 THE GRAPE. 



are aware, that in thus speaking of tins walking-stick 

 mode of pruning, we are going in the face of many good 

 grape-growers ; but the fact of a thing being generally 

 " fashionable," is no criterion of its excellence. Nature's 

 action in all these matters ought to be our guide, and the 

 more we adapt ourselves to her laws, the more permanent 

 will be our success. 



Sometimes the long-rod method is practised. In this 

 case, the first summer the cane is trained up as in the 

 former modes, only left somewhat longer when pruned, 

 and this suffered to bear a full crop the next season; after 

 which it is cut clean out to one eye from the bottom ; an- 

 other cane having been taken up during the same time 

 from its base, to afterAvards take the place of the one last 

 fruited, and so on. By this plan, which is seen in Fig. IS, 

 rig. 18. fine fruit may be obtained, as tlie bunches ema- 

 nate from strong buds, which, if they have 

 been previously well ripened, throw off hand- 

 some and large clusters ; but there is the evil 

 of having to cut off, at one fell swoop, the half 

 of the plant, leaving no perennial structural base, 

 excepting the very lowest stump. This whole- 

 sale and oft-repeated cutting keeps the plant 

 in a continual state of excitement, which is sure 

 to eventually show itself in premature weak- 

 ness. It is sometimes useful to resort to this plan, where 

 the upright training surface is contracted, as in narrow or 

 short raftered pits ; but here it may be modified by ex- 

 tending and training the leading shoots horizontally a 

 liUle further each season, and taking upright canes from 

 these main branches, at the distance of two feet apart ; in 

 which case, each alternate upright may be cut out to an 

 eye, after bearing, and another shoot be taken up the next 

 Beason, to fruit in its turn, as shown in Fig 19. As tht 



