18 AMERICAK GRAPE GROWIKG 



buds, and have the ground drawn up around them for 

 protection in winter. Should any of them look very 

 promising, fruit may be obtained a year sooner by graft- 

 ing the wood of the seedlings upon strong vines. Young 

 vines thus gi-afted will generally bear the next season (see 

 " Grafting," on another page). Next spring, which will 

 be their third, remove the covering, and when the young 

 shoots appear, allow only two to grow. After these have 

 grown about 18 inches, pinch off the top of the weakest 

 of the two shoots, so as to throw the growth into the 

 strongest shoot, which is to be kept neatly tied to the 

 stake or trelhs, treating it as the summer before, and 

 allowing all the laterals to grow. At the end of this 

 season's growth they should be strong enough to bear the 

 next summer. If they have made from eight to ten feet 

 of stocky growth, the leading cane may be cut back to 

 ten or twelve eyes, or buds, and the smaller one to a 

 spur of two eyes. If the vines will fruit at all, they will 

 show it the next summer, when only the most promising 

 ones should be kept, and the barren and worthless ones 

 discarded. Seedlings have this peculiarity : both the 

 berry and bunch will increase in size every year for the 

 first three or four years ; therefore, if the quality of the 

 fruit is only good, the size may come in time. The fruit 

 of the Elvira (of which more hereafter), which is now 

 about as large in bunch and berry as Catawba, was at first 

 not more than half its present size, it having increased in 

 dimensions every year for the last eight years. 



