GRAPE PRUNING AND TRAINING 331 



but benefited. If pruned later December to February 

 they bleed moreor lesscopiouslyas spring opensandmake 

 poorer growth the season following (15). After young 

 vines have made growths of, say, 6 inches in spring, they 

 may be pruned without serious damage, but large vines 

 pruned then will bleed badly. Vines pruned later may 

 be a week or two later in producing their shoots than un- 

 pruned vines or vines pruned at the proper time (215). 

 Methods of pruning used upon Labrusca varieties may 

 be employed with this group of varieties, but the musca- 

 dines are generally grown upon arbors (Fig. 280). 



244. The cross-wire system, used near Marlboro, N. Y., 

 has posts 8 feet apart each way 6 l / 2 feet above ground and 

 surmounted by two wires crossing at right angles. The 

 vines are trained to the posts as single trunks and made 

 to develop four arms, each of which extends along a wire 

 (Fig. 281). Annually these canes are renewed. 



245. The umbrella system, sometimes used on hillsides 

 and uneven ground where a trellis would be difficult to 

 construct, consists of a post with two cross arms at right 

 angles at the top (Fig. 261). The vines reach the cross 

 during the second year. From the vine head arms and 

 canes are developed as in the cross wire system (244). 

 Pruning consists in cutting back the vines to the re- 

 quisite number of buds indicated by the strength of the 

 vine. The posts are usually 4 to 5 feet above ground. 



246. Calif ornian systems* of vine pruning may be divided in'o 

 two classes according to the arrangement of the arms on the trunk 

 of the vine. In the commonest systems, there is a definite head to 

 the trunk, from which all the arms arise symmetrically at nearly 

 the same level. The vines of these systems may be called "hea^e'l 

 vines." In the other systems, the trunk is elongated 4 to 8 feet .'in 1 

 the arms are distributed regularly along the whole or the greater 

 portion of its length. The vines of these systems, owing to the rope- 

 like form of the trunks, are called "cordons." 



The headed vines are divided according to the length of the ver- 

 tical trunk into high, 2-3 feet, medium, \ l /2 feet, and low, 0-6 inches. 

 The cordons may be vertical or horizontal, according to the direction 



* Paragraphs 246 to 263 have been condensed from F. T. Bioletti's Bulletin 246 

 of the California Experiment Station. 



