142 THE GRAPE CULTURIST. 



not be renewed of tener than once in fifteen or twenty 

 years. 



There are several reasons why I believe the foregoing 

 method is one of the best systems for training vines. 

 1st. The horizontal is the best position that can be given 

 to the vine to develop its fruiting powers, the main 

 object in all the various methods of priming and train- 

 ing. 3d. The upright bearing caned being equally dis- 

 tributed on the arms, no one portion of the vine has any 

 advantage given it over another, the flow of sap being 

 equal to all parts. 3d. The equal distribution of the 

 fruiting canes not only allows a free circulation of air 

 among the leaves, but insures an equal distribution of 

 fruit. 4th. While the vine is restricted within certain 

 limits, it is not dwarfed, as some might suppose ; for a 

 vine with two arms four feet long, with ten upright 

 canes on each, making twenty canes three feet long, has 

 sixty feet of wood to be grown and pruned off each sea- 

 son. This quantity is certainly abundant to give the 

 'most vigorous growers sufficient expansion to insure a 

 healthy action of root. Some cultivators suppose that 

 because a vine will grow large and occupy considerable 

 'space, if allowed sufficient time and furnished with 

 plenty of nutriment, that it cannot remain healthy if it 

 be restrained within moderate limits. But this is a 

 great mistake, and the sooner such ideas are abandoned, 

 the better it will be for the cause. 5th. The vines being 

 trained low, the fruit receives a greater amount of heat 

 than if more elevated, because it gets not only the direct 

 rays of the sun, but also the heat reflected from the 

 earth. This last is quite important in a northern cli- 

 mate, where there is little danger of getting too much 

 heat. 6th. The mode is so simple that the most inex- 

 perienced may understand it ; and when the vines are 

 once put into shape, the pruning ever after is so nearly 

 the same there is scarcely any danger of going wrong. 



