102 An American Fruit-Farm 



yard may be renewed and kept young. Vines 

 may grow crooked stocks which interfere with the 

 tools. These may best be supplanted by a new 

 shoot. Again, the old vine may have what is 

 called the "dead-arm/' — ^that is, so diseased do the 

 two arms become because of trimming and spores 

 of fungi, they die even down to the ground and 

 ihust be replaced by a new sprout from the root. 



A grapevine nattirally tends to fruit at the end, 

 of course on last year's wood, so the clusters, in 

 successive years, would, if the vine is untrimmed, 

 form farther and farther from the root. The 

 trimmer cuts back the vine and keeps the fruit 

 near the stock, converting the vitality which would 

 become length of vine into quantity and quality 

 of fruit. Trimming is therefore the yearly regula- 

 tion of buds. Experience alone enables the trim- 

 mer to know how many and what buds to leave for 

 the season. He may suffer the vine to overbear, 

 with consequence of little or no fruit the following 

 year and a dangerous shock to the vine. The 

 entire art of cultivation culminates in the shape, 

 form, and fruitful vigor of the vine. 



Of several hundred variety of grapes which will 

 fruit in northern vineyards, less than half a dozen 

 are of commercial value. In the Lake Shore 

 Valley, and generally in the north, the Concord is 

 the standard grape ; the unit of measure of prolific- 

 ness, vigor, hardiness, regularity in bearing, and of 

 quality and quantity of fruit. If it may not be in 

 every respect the best known grape, it is the one 



