No. 4.] FRUIT GROWERS' ASSOCIATION. 



343 



Spring Field Meeting. 



A field meeting- of the association was held at Fitchburg, 

 June 12, 1896, about seventy-five members being in attend- 

 ance. The first visit was to the noted fruit farm of pr. 

 Jabez Fisher. The doctor explained his method of pruning 

 and training the grape, and showed his admirably constructed 

 cold-storao-e room, his o-reenhouses and the fruit cellar 

 where his crop of grapes for the last thirty years or more 

 has been stored until sold. The pear and apple orchards 

 were also visited, and the doctor's method of orchard man- 

 agement observed, a description of which may be found in 

 Agriculture of ^Massachusetts, 1889, page 11. 



Fig. 3. 



Dr. Fisher's method of ti'aining the vines is illustrated by 

 Fig. 3, which shows a part of two vines. The fruiting 

 canes of last season's growth, a, a, are trained each way 

 from the centre of the vine on the second wire of a five- 

 wired trellis, which is about two and one-half feet from the 

 groiuid. The laterals which are to bear the fruit are trained 

 as they grow to the wires al)Ove in a vertical position. 

 When these lateral canes have reached the top wire they are 

 pinched oif, and if any growth starts at any point on these 

 canes it is pinched ofl' as soon as one new leaf is formed. 

 The canes that are to 1:»ear the fruit the next season, b, b, 

 are trained along the lower wire, and if laterals start into 

 growth upon them they are also pinched after one leaf has 

 been formed, and all other shoots that start are pulled off. 

 Thus the growth is all forced into the most important jmrts 

 of the vines, i. e., those canes bearing the fruit and that are 



