16-4 AMERICAN GRAPE GROWING 



to plant all the grapes with a crowbar, taking care to fill 

 the holes well. Of course we plant all the cuttings 

 straight up and down. Two men can, in this way, com- 

 fortably plant 1,200 cuttings a day, and sometimes more. 

 We plant the cuttings 8 by 8 feet apart, leaving a road at 

 every twenty rows of vines. 



I have found that the best way is, to have the grapes 

 planted in checks or squares, of say 3 1 /, acres, having a 

 good solid bank of earth all round the same. Near to, 

 and on these banks, no grapes should be planted, because 

 they must be free to receive the prunings every winter, 

 and which prunings must be burned on these banks every 

 spring, so as to kill all the weeds and insects injurious to 

 the grapes. In this way a good deal of hosing is saved. 

 I plow 4 inches deep and cultivate crossways, and keep 

 cultivating the whole summer. Some parts of the vine- 

 yard I cultivated as much as seventeen times last summer. 



In December, or as soon as the vintage is over, I begin 

 to prune the vines. I cut off all the superfluous wood, 

 taking care not to touch those canes which are to bear 

 the next year's crop. Those I leave altogether until the 

 middle of April, when I trim them back to two or three 

 eyes as required. The reason for this is, that we nearly 

 always have heavy frosts between the 6th and 12th of 

 April, and if then the fruit buds have started they are 

 sure to be lost. By leaving long canes, however, I 

 manage to keep them dormant until after tjie froaty sea- 

 son. Between February and April^we have no frost. 

 The trunk on our vines is generally kept to 2 feet, and 

 many of the superior grapes rest on the ground and ma- 

 ture there. We use neither stakes nor trellis. 



The grapes ripen generally in the middle of August, 

 and the vintage can then begin. Some varieties, how- 

 ever, have been known to be ripe in favorable years as 

 early as the 4th of July. The percentage of sugar is gen- 

 erally very large, average 14 to 16, but sometimes as 



