404 AMERICAN GRAPE TRAINING 



It should be said here that a growing, leafy 

 branch of the grape vine is called a shoot; a 

 ripened shoot is called a cane ; a branch or trunk 

 two or more years old is called an arm. 



A shoot, as it appears in the northern states in 

 June, is shown in Fig. 258. The whole shoot 

 has grown within a month, from a bud. As it 

 grew", flower clusters appeared, and these are to 

 bear the grapes. Flowering is now past, but the 

 shoot will continue to grow, perhaps, to the 

 length of ten or twenty feet. At picking time, 

 therefore, the grapes all hang near the lower end 

 or base of the shoots or new canes, as in Fig. 

 259 and Fig. 52, page 65. In Fig. 259, the old 

 cane was cut at A. Then a shoot started from a 

 bud at B and grew beyond BB, and another 

 shoot sprung from the uppermost bud. 



Each bud on the old cane, therefore, produces 

 a new [cane which may bear fruit as well as 

 leaves. At the close of the season, this long ri- 

 pened shoot or cane has produced a bud every 

 foot or less, from which new fruit -bearing shoots 

 are to spring next year. But if all these buds 

 were allowed to remain, the vine would be over- 

 taxed with fruit the coming year, and the crop 

 would be a failure. The cane is, therefore, cut 

 off until it bears only as many buds as experi- 

 ence has taught us the vine should carry. The 

 cane may be cut back to five or ten buds, and 

 perhaps some of these buds will be removed, or 



