GRAPE 



673 





wire fence, as shown in Pig. 969; but the Knifl&n system 

 omits the bottom wire. 



The vineyardists of the Chautauqua Grape belt have 

 developed a mode of pruning and training of Grapes 

 which has many features peculiar to that district. The 

 trellis is made of two wires, of No. 9 or No. 10 gauge, 

 and chestnut posts. The posts are from 6 to 8 feet in 

 length, and cost 1 cent per lineal foot at the railroad 

 station. In later years, since experience has shown how 

 important air and sunshine are in ripening the fruit, 

 8-foot posts are most commonly used. Grape posts 

 should be somewhat heavier than those commonly used 

 for wire fence — from one-third to one-half larger— and 

 the heaviest should be sorted out for the end posts, for 

 these bear the strain of the wire. An experienced 

 farmer need not be told that they should be sharpened 

 with a true lead-pencil taper, excepting the crooked 

 ones, which should be so beveled as to counteract the 

 crook in driving. 



The usual distance apart for the posts in the row of 

 Grapes is one post to every three vines, or, in other 

 words, 27 feet, and for ease in stretching the wire, they 

 should be in as straight a line as possible. The posts 

 are driven, but a hole should first be made by an unusu- 

 ally large crowbar with a bulb near the lower end. 

 After the posts are stuck into the holes, they are most 

 conveniently driven by the operator standing in a wagon 

 which is hauled through the row by a horse. A fair 

 weight of maul is 12 pounds, and it requires a good man 

 to swing one of that size all day. Iron mauls are com- 

 monly used because they are the cheapest, but one with 

 an iron shell filled with wood "brooms" or frays the top 

 of the post less than the iron maul. Eighteen inches is 

 a fair depth to drive the posts on most soils. If the pro- 

 prietor delegates the driving to another man, he would 

 better direct that 20 to 22 inches be the proper depth, 

 for to the man swinging the maul the post seems deeper 

 than it really is. 



A vineyard should have a break or an alley at right 

 angles to the rows as often as every 50 Grape vines, for 

 the purpose of dumping Grape brush and shortening 

 the trip when hauling fruit. If the vineyard is in fair 

 thrift, longer rows will give so much brush as to be in- 

 convenient in hauling oiit. 



The end posts should not only be the largest of the 

 lot, but should also be well braced. The most common 

 mode is the "hypotenuse brace," consisting of a stiff 

 rail or a 4x4 scantling 12 feet long, with one end 

 notched into the post about midway between the two 

 wires, and the other end resting on the ground against 

 a 2-foot peg of about the same size as the end post. 



The wires (two wires in the Chautauqua trellis) 



should be strung on the windward side 

 of the post; that is, on the side from which 

 the prevailing winds come. This is very 

 important when the wind is blowing at 30 

 to 40 miles an hour, and the vines have 

 sails of many square feet of foliage, and 

 perhaps three and four tons of fruit per 

 acre. The staples should be of the same 

 gauge of wire as that used in barbed wire 

 fences, but about one-half inch longer, un- 

 less the Grape posts should be of hard 

 wood, like locust ; then fence staples will 

 be long enough. The bottom trellis wire 

 is usually placed from 28 to 32 inches 

 from the ground. Owing to the arm sys- 

 tem of pruning in the Chautauqua Grape 

 belt, the height of the lower trellis wire 

 is permanent. The upper trellis wire is, 

 in many instances, raised as the vineyard 

 comes to maturity. The first year of fruit- 

 ing it may not be more than 24 inches 

 above the lower wire, and year by j'ear be 

 raised to 30 and 32 inches. It is not advis- 

 able to go more than 36 inches apart with- 

 out putting in a middle or third wire. 

 Each spring many of the posts will sag, 

 and the upper wire will be slack, and many 

 of the bmces will be out of place. All of 

 these faults should be corrected just be- 

 fore tying up tbe canes in spring. 



A large part of the pruning is done in the 

 wintermonths — some beginningin the fall soon afterthe 

 crop is harvested. Two grades of labor can be employed 

 in this operation — the skilled and the unskilled. The 

 man of skill, or the expert, goes ahead and blocks out. 

 He stands in front of a vine of far more tangled brush 

 than that seen in Fig. 962, and, at a glance, tells by a 

 judgment ripened by much observation, just how many 

 buds are required to ballast and not over-ballast the 

 vine for another year. As the expert stands before the 

 vine making the estimate, he might be likened to a man 

 weighing a ham with stot'lyanls, pushing the weight 

 backward and forward, not'-h by notch, finding the point 

 of balance. The expert, with Iiis pruning shears, makes 

 a dive here and a lunge there, a clip at the bottom and 

 a snip at the top, and with a few more seemingly wild 

 passes all wood is severed from the bearing vine, but 

 the number of buds desired to give fruit another year 

 are left. The unskilled help, who receives possibly a 

 dollar a day less than the expert, follows the expert, 

 cutting the tendrils and other parts of the vine that are 

 attached to anything but the trellis. The next process 

 is "stripping" the brush, and it is one involving brute 

 force, ragged clothes and leather mittens. If the laborer 



does not put on a ragged suit, he will be apt to have 

 one before he is done with his job. There is a little 

 knack even in doing this work to the best advantage. 

 The dismembered vines still hung to the upper trellis 

 and often cling with considerable tenacity, and a par- 

 ticular jerk or yank, more easily demonstrated than de- 



