264 AMERICAN GRAPE GROWING 



called English cleft, or whip graft, saddle grafting, graft- 

 ing by approach, etc. It is not my object to give an 

 elaborate treatise upon grafting, but to give the most 

 simple and practical method by which large vineyards can 

 be grafted with the least labor and cost, as well as with 

 the greatest assurance of success, and for which common 

 field hands, with ordinary intelligence and skill, can be 

 used. All the more complicated methods, as well as 

 grafting in the shop and setting out the grafts, I con- 

 sider as little better than impractical nuisances, not 

 adapted to the requirements of the practical vineyardist. 



With this method little or no time will be lost, for we 

 do not expect much fruit the third summer, and the 

 graft will make nearly, if not quite, as much growth as 

 a shoot from the original vine would have done. 



Vines which were not grafted, but tied to the stake 

 and pruned as described, will push out strong shoots 

 from the upper buds. These are left, either two or three, 

 to form the future head of the vine. If the growth is 

 strong, each of these shoots will bear a few bunches of 

 grapes, so that the crop, the third summer, will some- 

 times be from one to two tons of grapes to the acre, 

 enough to pay for staking and cultivation. In the south- 

 ern part of the State, where vineyards are irrigated, there 

 are instances on record of two to three tons of grapes 

 even the second summer; but here in the north, where 

 we do not irrigate, it generally takes four years before 

 much of a crop can be obtained, nor is it judicious to let 

 the vines bear too early, as it exhausts and debilitates 

 them. To form a good head, all the lower shoots should 

 be rubbed off as soon as they appear, and only two or 

 three of the upper shoots be left, according to the 

 strength of the vine. 



The following winter, if the stool or head pruning, 

 which is now most generally followed, is to be adopted, 

 we usually cut back these shoots to two or three buds 



