PRUNING THE GRAPE IN EASTERN AMERICA 117 



vines must be laid down for winter protection. Canes may be 

 renewed indefinitely, if care is exercised in keeping the stubs 

 short, without enlarging the head from which the canes are 

 taken out of proportion to the size of the trunk. Renewing 

 by canes is a more common method than renewal by spurs, 

 as will be found in the discussion of methods of training. 



Spur renewal. 



In renewing by spurs, a permanent arm is established to 

 right and left on the canes. Shoots on this arm are not permit- 

 ted to remain as canes but are cut back to spurs in the dor- 

 mant pruning. Two buds are left at this pruning, both of which 

 will produce bearing shoots ; the lower one, however, is not 

 suffered to do so but is kept to furnish the spur for the next 

 season. The shoot from the upper bud is cut away entirely. 

 When this process is 

 carried on from year to 

 year, the spurs become 

 longer and longer until 

 they become unwieldy. 

 Occasionally, however, 

 happy chance permits 

 the selection of a shoot 

 on the old wood for a 

 new spur. Failing in 

 this, a new arm must 

 be laid down and the 

 spurring goes on as be- 

 fore. The objections 

 to renewing by spurs 

 are : it is often difficult to replace spurs with new wood, and 

 the bearing portion of the vine gets farther and farther from 

 the trunk. For these reasons, spur-renewing is generally in 

 disfavor with commercial grape-growers, though it is still used 



FIG. 13. Vine ready for pruning ; i, the 

 stem ; g, arms ; d, canes ; s, shoots ; b, spurs. 

 The faint lines near the bases of the canes in- 

 dicate the points where they should be pruned 

 off in the winter, lea^ng spurs for the produc- 

 tion of shoots the following season. 



