GRAPE VINES EXTENSION TRAINING. 281 



describe, and there ought to be no difficulty now in comprehending it. The chief 

 danger lies in overcrowding the growths and overcropping. 



The bearing shoots should be 18 inches apart on both sides of the rod (disbudding 

 the others), but every shoot ought not to be allowed to bear, because from strong 

 canes the bunches produced are invariably large, and overcropping must be strictly 

 avoided. The rods should be 2 feet 6 inches apart, the vines being planted 5 feet 

 asunder. With a generous rooting medium and good management abundant crops of 

 grapes are produced by the system in question. 



Extension Training. This is the oldest plan of all, and most consonant with the 

 natural habit of the vine. A vine is allowed to extend its rods or branches till it fills 

 a large house. The vine has many rods instead of one. When the allotted space is 

 occupied the extension ceases, and the vine, if then pruned on the spur system, 

 produces smaller bunches than when it was extending. To maintain the greatest 

 amount of vigour, a supply of young canes must be provided to take the place of rods 

 which have the spurs elongated and weakened by continuous bearing. This is the 

 principle of the extension system, and may be carried out in a vine with one rod as 

 well as in one with many branches. But vines planted at 4 feet apart and 

 confined to one rod each cannot possibly attain to such vigour and retain it so long as 

 those planted 12 feet apart and brought away with three rods. The closer vines are 

 planted or the rods trained the sooner they become exhausted, because the annual 

 growths are not adequate for maintaining them in youthful vigour through the want 

 of space, and the crops are disproportionate to the foliage. Vines with one rod are 

 less easily replenished with young rods than those that have three or more rods when 

 the old become worn out. But a cane can be trained up from the base of a rod that 

 is weak in its spurs, and that cane treated the same as the old rod was in occupying 

 its space, cutting away the spurs on the old rod to give the young cane space as it 

 advances year by year, and when it is capable of bearing fruit the whole length of the 

 rafter, the old rod can be cut out. By that practice a vine may be kept in a healthy 

 state indefinitely, if the roots find appropriate food, and the growths are thinly disposed 

 and kept clean. 



The extension system in vines with many rods is a combination of the spur and 

 long rod systems, and is practised on every part of the vine. Worn-out, enfeebled 

 rods, and young canes that are heavy or weakened by crops, are shortened or cut clean 

 out in favour of promising canes that have been provided to supplant them. Thus the 



VOL. II. O O 



