138 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Layering. — This is the easiest and most successful mode of 

 multiplying the grape-vine ; it is simply to dig a trench near 

 your vine, six inches wide, and three to four inches deep, and 

 then take well ripened shoots growing near the base of the vine ; 

 bend these carefully and peg them down with the end of the 

 shoot above ground. This must be done early in the spring. 

 These will make good plants in one season for setting. 



Pruning and Training. — It is difficult to give directions on 

 paper for pruning vines, as there are so many cases requiring 

 different management, but we will try to give a few general 

 ones, that may be of benefit, and which if properly followed 

 will produce finer fruit, and more regular crops, than if no 

 pruning at all had been practiced. In the first place, we will 

 suppose a young vine, one or two years old, about to be planted ; 

 it should be cut back, if not previously done (if it is in the 

 spring) to two buds, only one of which should be allowed to 

 grow through the summer; the other rubbed out after having 

 pushed two or three inches, it having been kept in case of acci- 

 dent to the first. The growing shoot should be kept tied to the 

 stake or trellis, and if the laterals are allowed to grow this 

 season, they will do no harm, but rather increase the strength 

 of the root. These laterals are side-shoots, springing from the 

 base of the leaf on the same year's wood ; and after the vine 

 gets established, it is customary to keep them nipped back to 

 one bud. 



The vine has now arrived at the end of the first season's 

 growth, and if it is strong and thrifty, having grown five or six 

 feet, it should be cut back to three buds ; but if it appears 

 weakly, and has made little growth, it should be cut back to 

 two, and treated the following summer the same as the first ; 

 it should now be covered for the winter. In the spring, (if it 

 was a strong vine, when cut back the preceding fall,) two shoots 

 should now be trained up, keeping the laterals before mentioned 

 nipped into one bud ; the other or third bud after having grown 

 a few inches, should be rubbed out, as it was merely reserved 

 in case of accident to either of the others. After the two shoots 

 have grown their full length, and the leaves are off in the fall, 

 they should be cut back, according to their strength, to four or 

 six feet, each one being brought down horizontally within one 

 foot or eighteen inches of the ground, and tied down to the 



