CHAPTER VII 

 PRUNING THE GRAPE IN EASTERN AMERICA 



THE inexperienced look on pruning as a difficult operation 

 in grape-growing. But once a few fundamentals are grasped, 

 grape-pruning is not difficult. There is much less perplexity 

 in pruning the grape than in pruning tree-fruits. Pruning fol- 

 lows accepted patterns in every grape region, and when the 

 pattern is learned the difficulties are easily overcome. The 

 inexperienced are confused by the array of " principles/' 

 "types/' " methods/' "systems" and the many technical 

 terms that enter into discussions of grape-pruning. Some of 

 the technicalities come from European practices, and others 

 originated in the infancy of grape-growing in this country when 

 there was great diversity in pruning. Divested of much that 

 is but jargon, an inexperienced man can easily learn in a few 

 lessons, from word of mouth or printed page, how to prune 

 grapes. 



The simplicity of pruning has led to slighting the work in 

 commercial vineyards, by too often trusting it to unskilled 

 hands. Then, too, in this age of power-propelled tools, pride 

 in hand labor has been left behind, and few grape-growers 

 now take time and trouble to become expert in pruning. 

 Simple as the work may seem to those long accustomed 

 to it, he who wants to put into his pruning painstaking intel- 

 ligence and to taste the joy of a task well done finds in this 



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