78 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



Following tiling, if the land has had to be under-drained, 

 the vineyard should be graded to fill depressions and to make 

 the surface uniform. Usually this can be done with cutaway, 

 tooth or some other harrow, but sometimes the grader or 

 road-scraper must be put in use. 



Fitting the land. 



Preparatory cultivation should begin the spring preceding 

 planting by deep plowing. If the land has been used long for 

 general farming so that a hard plow-sole has been formed by 

 years of shallow plowing, a subsoil-plow should follow in the 

 furrow of the surface plow, although it is seldom advisable to 

 go deeply into the true hardpan. Fitting the land must not 

 stop here but should continue through the summer with harrow 

 and cultivator to pulverize the soil almost to its ultimate 

 particles. Such cultivation can be sufficiently thorough, and 

 be made at the same time profitable, by growing some hoed 

 crop which requires intensive culture. If the soil lacks humus, 

 a cover-crop of clover or other legume might well be sown in 

 early summer to be plowed under in late fall. Or, if stable 

 manure is available, this generally should be applied the fall 

 before planting. Stable manure applied at this time to a soil 

 inclined to be niggardly puts an atmosphere in the forth- 

 coming vineyard wholly denied the grower who must rely on 

 commercial fertilizers. 



The land should be plowed again, deeply and as early in 

 the fall as possible, harrowed thoroughly, or possibly cross- 

 plowed and then harrowed. The land must go into the winter 

 ready for early spring planting and the fall w^ork must be done 

 promptly and with a sturdy team and sharp, bright tools. The 

 grower must keep in mind that no opportunity will offer during 

 the life of the vineyard to even up for slackness in the start and 

 that a vineyard of dingy, unhappy vines may be the result of 

 neglect at this critical time. Good tilth should proceed until 



