SECT. XII. OF PRUNING. 157 



should be about twelve inches asunder if they are 

 strong, and weak ones may be something less ; too 

 much room can hardly be allowed them, as experience 

 will prove. 



The shortening of the shoots should be according 

 to their strength and the space there is for training 

 those shoots that will be produced, which always 

 grow very long. If there is room, three, four, or 

 five eyes may be left, but not more to any shoot, 

 except it is desirable to extend some shoot to a dis- 

 tance to fill up a particular space, and then eight or 

 nine eyes may be left, which being repeated again 

 another year, and so on, a vine will soon reach a 

 great way. 



Sometimes vines are trained on low walls by a 

 long extended horizontal branch, a few inches from 

 the ground, as a mother bearer. Those shoots that 

 come from this horizontal are to be trained perpen- 

 dicularly, and cut down to one or two eyes every 

 year, that they may not enroach too fast on the 

 space above them. If the vine is confined to a nar- 

 row but lofty space, it is to be trained to an extended 

 perpendicular mother bearer, having short lateral 

 shoots pruned down to a single eye, or at most two. 

 The management of vines requires severe cutting, 

 that they may not be too full in the summer, for 

 they put out a great deal of wood, and extend their 

 shoots to a great length ; resolve therefore to cut out 

 enough. 



An alternate mode of pruning vines is practised 

 by some, one shoot short, and another long ; i. e. 

 suppose one with two eyes, and another with four or 

 five. Severe cutting does not hurt vines, and make 

 them unfruitful as it does other trees ; and therefore, 

 where short of room, they may be pruned down to 

 a single bud, or even at the joint only. 



