CHAPTER XI. 
PRUNING AND TRAINING 
‘THERE are various methods of pruning ard training the 
grupe-vine, and each method has had its supporters. Good 
is, the grape-vine is so productive, and fruits so freely, 
even with very ordinary treatment, that bad indeed must 
pe ease when it ceases to yield its luscious sweets. 
Yet while so submissive under ill usage, and grateful, as it 
were, for a common existence, like other creatuies of na- 
ture’s higher organization, its expansive powers will become 
contracted, and the tractable disposition 1endered stubborn, 
by long continued abuse ; in which case, the quality of the 
fruit is deteriorated, the bunches are small, or the flavor 
inferior; and as pruning has something to do with this, 
pect the small Lunches, it may be well to explain 
the different modes that are practiced, and state the va- 
rious results obtained by them. 
Although it is best to allow the grape-vine, like all other 
fruits, to judiciously and periodically extend the superfi- 
cial surface of the leaves and branches, our arrangements 
and conveniences do not always admit of this desirable 
_ consummation being carried out. Such being the case, it 
behooves us, under the opens not to distort nature 
