266 THE GRAPE CULTUEI8T 



Having seen this plan highly recommended in some 

 European works on grape culture, I was persuaded to try 

 it upon several varieties ; and for this purpose I selected 

 ten large strong Delaware vines that had two canes each, 

 also a vine or two of some ten or twelve other varieties. 

 The buds started and the fruit set upon all very finely, and 

 everything seemed to work well until the three canes were 

 a few inches above those upon the arms ; these three then 

 commenced growing very rapidly, and would probably 

 have grown twenty feet high if I had not kept up a con- 

 tinual pinching. Yet with all this the fruit upon the arms 

 seemed to lack for nutriment, and it was far from being 

 equal to that upon the three main canes, or to that upon 

 other vines where all the bearing canes were checked alike. 

 On some of the vines the arms were left four feet long, and 

 on others only two feet, but the results of all were very 

 similar. I have tried the system on more or less vines for 

 the past four years, and I have come to the conclusion that 

 it is anything but a good one if carried out in accordance 

 with the plan given, because the forces of the vine are 

 thrown out of balance at just the worst possible time it 

 could be done. If the upright canes were all stopped at 

 the same height, then the plan is a good one, but it then 

 becomes simply the horizontal arm system which has been 

 already described. When the buds on the arm first start 

 they require so much sap to sustain them, that it flows with 

 probably as much force into the arm as into the other por- 

 tions ; but when these canes on the arm are checked and 

 the others allowed to run, the equilibrium is destroyed. 



In a German work called the "Winzerbtich" (wino 

 book), by F. Rubens, and published at Leipzig, in 1858, 

 we find a similar system shown at page 144, but with re- 

 sults much like those I have .mentioned ; for the canes on the 

 arm are shown as small and weak, or about one fourth the 

 size of those that have grown from the main stem. This 

 plan has also been described by several French writers, and 



