SECRETARY'S REPORT. 95 



This is the system known as the renewal system. It is well 

 adapted to tiie house or the espalier. If applied to vineyard 

 culture, you must have two poles to each vine, (after the third 

 year) cutting out each cane in alternate years. 



Spur pruning, however, is better adapted to field culture in 

 our climate, if we may trust our own experience. The vine is 

 not called upon to make so much wood, and after it is well 

 established, any intelligent boy who can handle a knife, can 

 prune the vine as well as a thorough bred gardener. Train up 

 your vine as before, with a single stem ; cut out all laterals at 

 the end of the first year; and cut back the main stem to 

 eighteen inches from the ground ; lead up a single stem from 

 the upper bud the next year, tying it to the pole and pinching 

 when it has reached to the top of the pole, which should be six 

 feet high. Pinch all laterals, as in the renewal system, and if 

 the main stem is not strong, cut back to a strong bud. 



The next year you will make your spurs ; let them be alter- 

 nate, right and left, and as nearly equi-distant as possible. 

 Pinch them in occasionally, and if side-shoots push, pinch them 

 at the first leaf. Do not let the spurs grow more than half a 

 yard or two feet long, for you want strong buds at the base of 

 the shoot to bear next year. 



At the fall pruning, cut back the lowest spur to three eyes ; 

 cut out the second and third spur to one eye each ; this brings 

 you to the fourth spur, which is opposite the first ; cut this 

 back to three eyes ; proceed as before through the whole length 

 of the vine. You will have alternate spurs for fruiting, and the 

 intervening spurs cut back to one eye, to make bearing wood 

 for the next season, when the spurs which have borne this year 

 are to be cut back to one eye, to make new spurs for alternate 

 bearings. A modification of spur pruning, practiced by some 

 grape growers, is to cut back the spur to the strongest bud, 

 without regard to the length of the spur ; rubbing out the 

 shoots from the other eyes, except the one at the base of the 

 spur, which is trained for the new wood of the next season, the 

 old spur being cut clean out, at the fall pruning. Well estab- 

 lished vines, spur-pruned, generally ripen their crops a few 

 days earlier than vines pruned on the renewal system. 



The best time of pruning for this latitude is probably the 

 early part of November. If the vine is pruned at that time, the 



