44 Pruning. 



BUSH BERG CATALOGUE. 



Pruning. 



both sides of the vine, as our object must be to 

 give the fruit all the air and light we can 

 without depriving it of the necessary foliage, 

 which is of greatest importance for the forma- 

 tion of sugar in the berries. To do so the 

 leaves must be well developed and healthy. 

 Diseased, mildewed foliage, however, will not 

 promote the sugar formation, but rather im- 

 pede the same. 



By the time the grapes have bloomed, the 

 laterals will have pushed from the axils of the 

 leaves on the bearing shoots. Now go over 

 these again, and pinch each lateral back to one 

 leaf, as shown in Fig. 70. In a short time the 

 laterals on the fruit-bearing branches which 

 have been pinched, will throw out suckers 

 again. These are again stopped, leaving one 

 leaf of the young growth. Leave the laterals 

 on the canes intended for next years' fruiting 

 to grow unchecked, tying them neatly to 

 the wires with bass or pawpaw bark, or with 

 rye straw. 



If you prefer training your vines on the hori- 

 zontal arm system (Fig. 68) the mode of sum- 

 mer pruning will in the main be the same. 

 Pinch off the end of each upright shoot as soon 

 as it has made two leaves Jbeyond the last 

 bunch of fruit ; the shoots after being stopped 

 will soon start, and after growing a few inches 

 should be stopped agaiu, as we wish to keep 

 them within the limits of the trellis, and the 

 laterals should be stopped beyond its first leaf 

 Thus we try to keep the vine equally balanced 

 in fruit, foliage and wood. It will be perceived 

 that fall pruning, or shortening-in the ripened 

 wood of the vine, and summer pruning, short- 

 ening-in and thinning out of the young growth, 

 have one and the same object in view, namely, 

 to keep the vine in proper bounds, and concen- 

 trate all its energies for a two-fold object, 

 namely, the production and ripening of the 

 most perfect fruit, and the production of 

 strong, healthy wood for the coming season's 

 crop. Both operations, in fact, are only differ- 

 ent parts of one and the same system, of which 

 summer pruning is the preparatory, and fall 

 pruning the finishing part ; but while the vine 

 will bear, without apparent injury, any rea- 

 sonable amount of pruning during its dor- 

 mant state, in the fall or winter, any severe 

 cutting during the summer, is an unmitigated 

 evil. G. W. Campbell, the well-known horti- 

 culturist says: "All the summer pruning I 

 would recommend, would be the early rub- 

 bing out of superfluous shoots, upon their first 

 appearance ; leaving only what is required for 

 next year's bearing wood. This with the pinch- 

 ing or stopping the ends of such shoots or canes 

 as were disposed to be too rampant in growth, 



would be all I would ever consider necessary. 

 Some of the most successful grape growers 

 within my knowledge carefully prune their 

 vines in fall or early spring, and then leave 

 them entirely without summer pruning." The 

 importance of this matter is so great that we 

 subjoin 



HUSMANN'S METHOD OF SUMMER PRUNING. 



[Extract from the " Grape Culturist," Xov., 1870.] 



Without proper and judicious summer prun- 

 ing, it is impossible to prune judiciously in the 

 fall. If you have allowed six to eight canes to 

 grow in summer where you need but two or 

 three, none of them will be fit to bear a full 

 crop, nor be properly developed. We prune 

 longer in fall than the majority of our vintners, 

 which gives a double advantage ; should the 

 frost of winter have injured or killed any of 

 the first buds, we still have enough left ; and 

 should this not be the case, we still have our 

 choice to rub off all imperfect shoots, to re- 

 duce the number of bunches at the first pinch- 

 ing, and thus retain only strong canes for the 

 next years' fruiting, and have only large, well 

 developed bunches. 



But to secure these advantages we have cer- 

 tain rules, which we follow strictly. We are 

 glad to see that the attention of the grape 

 growers of the country is thoroughly aroused 

 to the importance of this subject, and that the 

 old practice of cutting and slashing the young 

 growth in July and August is generally dis- 

 countenanced. It has murdered more prom- 

 ising vineyards than any other practice. But 

 people are apt to run into extremes, and many 

 are now advocating the " let-alone " doctrine. 

 We think both are wrong, and that the true 

 course to steer is in the middle. 



1. Perform the operation EARLY. Do it as 

 soon as the shoots are six inches long. At this 

 time you can oversee your vine much easier. 

 Every young shoot is soft and pliable. You do 

 not rob the vine of a quantity of foliage it can 

 not spare (as the leaves are the lungs of the 

 plant and the elevators of the sap). You can 

 do three times the work that you can perform 

 a week later, when the shoots have become 

 hardened, and intertwined by their tendrils. 

 Remember that the knife should have nothing 

 to do with summer pruning. Your thumb and 

 finger should perform all the work, and they 

 can do it easily if it is done early. 



2, Perform it thoroughly and systematically. 

 Select the shoots you intend for bearing wood 

 for next year. These are left unchecked ; but 

 do not leave more than you really need. Re- 

 member that each part of the vine should be 

 thoroughly ventilated, and if you crowd it too 



