114 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



gard it. For an example, a problem in pruning is here stated 

 and solved. 



A thrifty grape-vine should yield, let us say, fifteen pounds 

 of grapes, a fair average for the mainstay varieties. Each bunch 

 will weigh from a quarter to a half pound. To produce fifteen 

 pounds on a vine, therefore, will require from thirty to sixty 

 bunches. As each shoot will bear two or three bunches, from 

 fifteen to thirty buds must be left on the canes of the preceding- 

 year. These buds are selected in pruning on one or more canes 

 distributed on one or two main stems in such manner as the 

 pruner may choose, but usually in accordance with one or 

 another of several well-developed methods of training. Prun- 

 ing, then, consists in calculating the number of bunches and 

 buds necessary and removing the remainder. In essence 

 pruning is thinning. 



Horizontal versus perpendicular canes. 



An old dictum of viticulture is that the nearer the growing 

 parts of the vine approach the perpendicular, the more vigorous 

 the parts. The terminal buds, as every grape-grower knows, 

 grow very rapidly and probably absorb, unless checked, more 

 than their share of the energy of the vine. This tendency can 

 be checked somewhat by removing the terminal buds, which 

 also helps to keep the plants within manageable limits, but is 

 better controlled by training the canes to horizontal positions. 

 Grape canes are tied horizontally to wires to make the vines 

 more manageable and to reduce their vigor and so induce fruitful- 

 ness ; they are trained vertically to increase the vigor of the vine. 



Winter-pruning. 



Winter-pruning of the vineyard may be done at any time from 

 the dropping of the leaves in the autumn to the swelling of the 

 buds in the spring. The sap begins to circulate actively in the 

 grape early in the spring, even to the extremities of the vine, 



