28o THE FRUIT GROWERS GUIDE. 



generally superseded by the modern method of relying on vines with rods many years 

 old for producing fruit on side growths from them (laterals), and cutting these laterals 

 closely back in winter so that spurs are formed along the main rods ; yet the long rod 

 system has its advantages. So long as satisfactory crops of grapes are produced by the 

 close-spurring method no change is needed ; but in the course of time the growths from 

 very old rods become too weak for affording (when closely spurred) fine clusters of fruit, 

 and the more robust the vines are in character the less likely they are to produce fruit 

 when pruned to one or two small basal buds. Take, as an example, in black grapes 

 the large-bunched Gros Guillaume, and in white grapes the noble-berried Duke of 

 Buccleuch; neither of these varieties can give the best results under continuous 

 "spurring;" but encourage them to make long, strong, stout growths, under full 

 exposure to light for insuring the ripening of the canes, and these canes, if not 

 materially shortened, will give the best grapes the vines are capable of producing. By 

 a combination of the two systems, both more or less modified, many vines have more 

 than doubled the value of their crops the first season. 



We wish, however, to show the long rod method of training as carried out systema- 

 tically, for many young gardeners are not taught it, and the majority of vine-growing 

 amateurs know little or nothing about the process, simple and easy though it be. 



Long rod training consists in providing strong well-ripened canes in one season for 

 producing fruit the next, then cutting them out, others being in readiness for continuing 

 the supply, and so on from year to year. All the fruit is produced by canes a year old 

 only, exactly as in the case of vines fruited in pots, and the summer pinching of 

 axillary growths is the same in both. Canes for bearing and growths for succeeding 

 them are shown in the sketches. It will be seen that when the vines are fully 

 established each has two canes, one reaching to the top of the house and bearing 

 under the upper half of the roof, the other bearing from the base of the rafter halfway 

 up the roof. The lower part of the long rod bore in the preceding year, and the bearing 

 parts were cut out in winter. The removal of these gives room for a successional cane 

 growth in summer. All this is shown in G, Fig. 87, and the preceding examples in the 

 same figure show the process. 



It will be apparent from the foregoing that the rafters are furnished with one rod 

 for bearing fruit halfway up, and another rod for bearing from the centre of the roof 

 to the top the same year, leaving a spur at the bottom of each to produce canes to 

 replace the whole eventually. This svstem is much more easy to carry out than to 



