84 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Each upright spur is cut off so as to leave but two buds, not 

 counting the undeveloped buds around the junction of the spur 

 with the arm. The ground has all this time been cultivated 

 with a horse-hoe, except the space between the trellis and the 

 trunks of the vines, which is kept loose by the hand-hoe. 



To exhibit this mode of treatment in full, it will be necessary 

 to give the proposed operations for one year more. The vines 

 are to be laid upon the ground, before it freezes up perma- 

 nently, and kept there by a little soil thrown upon them. Next 

 spring, just before the buds start, they are to be tied to the 

 trellis, and from the upright spurs, the upper bud will be 

 allowed to grow and show fruit. If from any cause this bud 

 fails to start, the lower one will take its place, but otherwise the 

 latter will be rubbed off. One of the best of the base buds 

 which were only partially developed the autumn previous, will 

 be permitted to grow, while all the others are to be rubbed off. 

 Both these shoots will be tied to the wire immediately above, 

 and pinched off the same as the past season. That portion of 

 the arm which grew the past summer, will form spurs precisely 

 as the first portion has already done. In the autumn of 1865 

 the old upright spur, with the shoot that has grown from its top 

 bud, bearing fruit, will be cut entirely away, leaving only the 

 shoot that grows from the bud at the base, and that shoot, or 

 spur as it will then be, will be cut back, leaving but two buds 

 as before. The spurs on the end of the arm, are to be pruned 

 in the same manner, and then the vine is fully established, the 

 same course of pruning and training being followed out year 

 after year. 



My reasons for adopting this method and its advantages over 

 others, I will endeavor to give briefly. It is very well known 

 that whoever plants a grape-vine in a fair soil, gets, the third, 

 fourth or fifth year, one or two very fine crops, but after this 

 time the fruit depreciates in size and quantity, and although the 

 vine may be sufficiently vigorous, the crop seldom equals that 

 of its earlier years. The reason I conceive to be this : When a 

 vine is three or four years old it makes a growth of wood, vary- 

 ing from two to ten or more feet in length on the different 

 shoots. The best fruit buds are somewhere near the centre of 

 these shoots. Everybody knows that it is common practice to 

 prune grape-vines every winter, but without a thought of the 



