176 THE GEAPE CULTUKIST. 



thereby allowkg it to produce more fruit than upon those 

 that are pruned to one head. This is an old Hungarian 

 mode, and it is still practiced in many parts of Europe. 



If the reader will refer to Figs. 63, 64, 62, and 45, he can 

 see at a glance the improvements which have been made in 

 the form of training the vine from the days of the ancient 

 Romans down to the present time. And it will be readily 

 seen that they are all founded upon the same principle, the 

 only difference being that the top of the vine is extended 

 more in one than in the other. They are all pruned on the 

 renewal system that is, all the young shoots are cut back 

 every year. 



Within the range of these four plans and their variations 

 are comprised all the successful systems that have ever 

 been invented. The head pruning is practiced upon the 

 poorest of soils, and the buck pruning on soils that are only 

 moderately rich, and the other two upon rich soils, and 

 with the strongest growing varieties. 



There is, however, a system of training in use in Lom- 

 bardy that differs from any of those given ; but it should 

 not be called an artificial system, because the vines are al- 

 lowed to grow upon trees, as they would in their wild 

 state, no particular method of training or pruning being 

 adopted. The vines bear as well as they would in their 

 wild state, but the process is a slow and tedious one at 

 best. 



GIRDLING THE VINE. 



If the reader will turn back to Fig. 62 he will see that 

 one of the canes is shown as girdled (A) ; also the part of 

 the same that has been girdled is shown at the left and be- 

 low the figure. This operation, though often producing 

 remarkable results, is still of questionable utility. 



That it causes the fruit to grow much beyond its natural 

 size is certain, but the quality is never improved, and 

 usually very much injured. The- practical results of such 



