105 



Fig. 55. 



near the root faj, and others trained to a pole resting one end 

 on the ground (b), and the other made fast by a slip-knot (c) to 

 the top of the next stake. This gives the fruit and foliage the 

 full benefit of the sun and air, thereby avoiding rot and mil- 

 dew, and insuring early maturity. By simply slipping the 

 knot, the canes trained at an angle may be dropped down, and 

 covered during winter, and taken up and placed in position 

 again in the spring. Tender varieties require this protection, 

 and experience has shown that the fruit of the more hardy sorts 

 will ripen a week or ten days earlier when the vines have been 

 thus protected. Instead of training two of the canes to upright 

 stakes, as at d, poles may be placed so as to form an X between 

 the stakes, as at e in the cut, in which case all the canes may 

 be dropped to the ground, and protected. 



I trust that no one will conclude, from the descriptions here 

 given, that any one of these methods of training the vine is ab- 

 solutely indispensable in order to grow grapes for home use, or 

 even for the market. Better, a thousand times, to discard them 

 all, and plant your vines, simply tying them up to the roughest 

 stakes you can find, and neglect pruning entirely, rather than 

 oblige your boys to scour the hills and swamps for wild grapes 

 that are unfit to eat after they have been stolen. There are 

 many tons of grapes grown in the South and West every year, 

 both for the table and for wine, where the vines are trained to 

 stakes in the simplest manner, and some of the largest grow- 

 ers in New England practice the same method. Just plant 

 two stakes on opposite sides of each vine, eighteen inches from 

 the root, and train one cane around each stake spirally, pinch- 

 ing the end of the vine when the top of each stake is reached, 

 and pinching the laterals occasionally. Vines thus trained may 



