THE GRAPE 



49 



has frequently happened that inexperienced persons failed to get 

 much fruit on their vines because in pruning they had cut away all 

 the fruit bearing wood. However, this pinching should never take 

 off more than the tip of the cane. 



Removing Foliage.— Under no circumstances should any 

 considerable foliage be taken from the vine while it is growing. 

 The notion that ripening fruit needs the sunlight is very much at 

 iault. Grapes ripen best where the fruit is in the shade and the 

 leaves in the bright sunlight. The leaves are, so to speak, both 

 lungs and stomach to the plant, and anything that injures them 

 prevents the ripening of the fruit. 



An Easy System of Pruning, and also one that is well 

 adapted to practical purposes, may be described as follows: Plant 



Fig. 36. — Permanent vine in autumn of fifth and subsequent years. 

 Dotted tines slurw where pruning should tie done. i 



the vines twelve feet apart in the rows. The second year permit 

 two shoots to grow, and in pruning in the autumn of tliis year cut 

 out the weak wood only. The third year tie one cane to the lower 

 wire and the other to the third wire. Encourage the vine to spread 

 over the trellis, and in prunihg leave perhat)s one-third of the new 

 wood. In after years retain enough young thrifty wood to fully 

 cover the trellis, which will be a.l that the roots can properly sup- 

 port, and cut out as much old and weak wood as practicable, and 

 shorten any very long canes. This will require the cutting out of 

 perhaps four-fifths the new wood each year. As the vine gets old 

 encourage the growth of one or two young shoots from near the 

 root. When the main cane oeoomes so stiff that it cannot be easily 

 buried in winter it may be replaced with one of these shoots from 

 near the root, or what is generally preferred, the stiff part of the 

 main cane may be buried permanently and some of the younger 



