362 



CALIFORNIA FRUITS: HOW TO GROW THEM 



adopted, the treatment for the first two and even three years is 

 practically identical and is that which has already been described 

 in detail. 



Long pruning admits of degrees, but it usually signifies using 

 a five or six instead of a four-foot stake and leaving the selected 

 canes from eighteen inches to three feet or longer instead of 

 cutting back to two or three buds, as in short pruning. These 

 long canes are securely tied to the long stakes. 



With varieties needing long pruning the first two or three 

 buds next the old wood do not bear fruit, hence the need of 

 leaving buds farther removed from the old wood to secure it. 

 This habit of the vine invites the practice of growing a long cane 

 for fruit and at the same time providing for wood growth for 

 the following year's fruiting by cutting another cane from the 

 same spur down to two or three buds. By this practice the 

 wood which has borne the fruit is cut back to a bud each winter 

 and the cane which has grown only wood is pruned long for the 

 fruit of the following summer. A modification of the practice 

 is to prune the canes from some of the spurs long, and from 

 other spurs short, thus making the spurs alternate from wood 

 bearing to^ fruit bearing from year to year. Unless some method 

 is adopted to promote the growth of strong canes from near the 

 head of the vine, long pruning becomes unsatisfactory. Accord- 

 ing to the common way with those vines which are known to 

 require longer canes for satisfactory bearing, such canes are 

 selected when the vine is well established and two, three, four, or 

 more canes four or five feet long are tied up vertically to a high 

 stake. This process is repeated the next year and the next, and 

 the result is, with the Sultanina at least, that after the second or 

 third year all the bearing wood is at the top of the stake, and the 

 vine must be pruned short again or suckers and watersprouts 

 left as long canes. Neither way is satisfactory. 



Two methods have been successfully used to insure the growth 

 of new fruit wood every year in a position where it can be util- 

 ized. The first consists in bending the fruit canes into a circle, 

 as illustrated in Fig. 5. This diminishes the tendency of the 

 sap of the vine to go to the end of the fruit canes. The conse- 

 quence is that more shoots start on the lower parts of the fruit 

 canes. All the shoots on these canes are made weaker and more 

 fruitful by the bending, and at the same time the sap pressure is 

 increased and causes strong shoots to start from the wood-spurs 

 left near the bases of the fruit canes. These shoots are used 

 for fruit canes at the following winter pruning, and new wood 

 spurs are then left for the next year. 



The tying and bending of the fruit canes require great care, 

 and repeated suckering and removal of watersprouts are neces- 

 sary to insure a strong growth of replacing canes on the wood 





