48 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1893. 



viuced that it is the one best adapted to his wants ; or if, ou the other 

 hand, it should not prove satisfactory to him, he must gradually 

 change to some other system, and he must ever be looking out for 

 next year's growth of wood, and the proper ripening of the same, for 

 in the proper development of this depends mainly the success of the 

 next year's crop. And often in the trimming of a vine he must look 

 ahead three j'^ears, in order to make a cane grow from the right place 

 on the old vine, hereby proving again the necessity of the close atten- 

 tion of the vine grower. And no doubt it is this close attention neces- 

 sary to give the best results, that make the vine so prominent among 

 Horticulturists to-day. I will not take time to describe to you the 

 many different ways of growing grapes as practised to-day in this 

 country, but simply tell you what I am doing. The first grapes I set 

 were put 6 feet by 10, and the trellis ran east and west. This, at 

 that time, was contrary to the belief of most of the grape growers, 

 who favored north and south as the proper direction in which to run 

 the trellis, but since that time there has quite a change taken place in 

 the minds of many of our prominent grape growers, many claiming 

 that where the trellis is run east and west the vines and soil get the 

 benefit of the sun's rays during the fore part of the day, and that in 

 the afternoon, as it declines, the ground is not shaded by a north and 

 south trellis, and thus gets the full benefit of the sun. But be this as 

 it may, our experience leads us to say that it is not best to adopt any 

 set rule, that drainage is of the most importance, and that it is best 

 to run the trellis so that it will assist in the rapid drainage of all sur- 

 face water. After ten or twelve years I thought I could not afford so 

 much room for those vines, and I put in a row between each trellis, so 

 that they now stand 6 feet by 5, and have always given us as fine 

 grapes as any we have grown ; but we feed them higher than where 

 they are planted farther apart. While the most of my vines are 

 planted 7 feet by 6, I would now plant 8 feet by 6, as 8 feet is none 

 too much to work in. Let us now stake off our ground, — being pro- 

 vided with as many good stakes, 4 or 5 feet long, as we intend to set 

 vines. We go to one corner of the field and set the first stake where 

 we wish to have the first vine in the first row ; then we establish the 

 opposite corner, having measured off 8 feet for each row ; the other 

 end of the field is next staked in the same way. Now we are ready 

 for the 0-foot measure, and with that and a man at the end of the 

 rows to see that they are set straight, the stakes are put through the 

 row, and when you are done you have a field of stakes, each stake 

 Just where you wish to have a grapevine, 8 by 6 feet apart. We are 



