TINES. 



177 



Vines for out-of-doors culture may be planted out the 

 end of March. If they are from pots, shake the earth 

 gently from the roots, uncoil them, spread them out in a 

 fan shape, spread a little good compost over them, and 

 cover the surface with three inches of coarse charred 

 material, which will absorb heat and admit water when 

 wanted. The young vines will only require training 

 until the autumn, when they must be cut back to three 

 or four eyes. The next year the shoots from these eyes 

 must be trained to any required fomi. They should not 

 be at all crowded. 



When a young vine of one shoot is cut back to three 

 or four eyes, each eye will of course become a shoot. 

 As soon as they are long enough to nail to the wall, the 

 two best must be chosen, and trained horizontally, about 

 a foot from the ground. When these are two feet and a 

 half long, the ends may be turned upwai^ds and trained 

 perpendicularly for two or three feet, according to then' 

 strength, and then stopped, by nipping off the ends ; 

 laterals produced after that time should also be stopped. 

 When the shoots from the two horizontal branches are 

 long enough to require nailing in, three on each must 

 be selected ; one near the end, one a foot nearer the 

 main stem, and a third between that and the main stem : 

 these should be nailed in perpendicular lines, allowed 

 to grow until they are about four feet long, and then 

 stopped. 



If young vines are not strong when first put in, they 

 had better be cutback to two eyes: select the best shoot, 

 train it up, and then proceed as above. 



To take up the progress of the trained vines : in the 

 next autumn pruning, cut down exery alternate shoot to 

 two eyes, and leave the others for fruit, two or three feet 

 long, according to their strength. It must always 

 be remembered that vines produce on young wood 

 of the present year, grown from eyes of one-year-old 

 wood. 



If each shoot produces more than half a dozen bunches 

 of grapes, the bunches should be reduced to that num- 

 ber. Each shoot which is cut back will produce two 



