246 Home Vegetable Gardening 



be well ripened; and the wood does not ripen until 

 after the fruit. It therefore sometimes becomes 

 necessary to cut out some of the bunches in order 

 to hasten the ripening of the rest. At the same time 

 the application of some potash fertilizer w^ill be 

 helpful. If the bunches do not ripen up quickly and 

 pretty nearly together, the vine is overloaded and 

 being damaged for the following year. 



The matter of pruning being mastered, the ques- 

 tion of training is one of individual choice. Poles, 

 trellises, arbors, walls — almost anything may be 

 used. The most convenient system, however, and 

 the one I would strongly recommend for practical 

 home gardening for results, is known as the (modi- 

 fied) Kniffen system. It is simplicity itself. A 

 stout wire is stretched five or six feet above the 

 ground; to this the single main trunks of the vine 

 run up, and along it are stretched the two or three 

 arms from which the fruiting-canes hang down. 

 They occupy the least possible space, so that garden 

 crops may be grown practically on the same ground. 

 I have never seen it tried, but where garden space 

 is limited I should think that the asparagus bed and 

 the Knififen grape-arbor just described could be 

 combined to great advantage by placing the vines, 

 in spaces left for them, directly in the asparagus 

 row. Of course the ground would have to be ma- 

 nured for two crops, A 2-8-10 fertilizer is right 



