52 
GRAPE VINES 
Prepare the ground as described on page 11. Stakes may be set to 
mark where the vines are to be planted, or a furrow 8 or 9 inches deep 
may be plowed every 10 feet, then cross furrows every 8 feet, and the 
vine set at the intersection of the two furrows. It is a good plan to set 
the vines so you can cultivate both ways, as that will save considerable 
hand-weeding the first two years before the wire trellis is put up. 
Some growers have been very successful in bringing their vineyards 
into bearing a year sooner by digging the hole with a spade. The bottom 
ot the hole is mounded up a little higher in the center than at the sides 
1 he vine is set in the center of this little mound and the roots spread out 
in all directions around it, and the dirt put in very carefully, just as vou 
would in setting a tree. 
Cultivate the ground thoroughly until the middle of the summer, 
bee page 34 for general rules for cultivation. Cover crops should be used, 
especially where the soil is thin. A very good plan is to drill in cow peas, 
soy beans, or Canada peas; stop up every other hole in the drill. This 
will leave room enough to cultivate between the rows of peas with an 
ordinary corn cultivator, and you will get just as heavy a growth of 
peas as if you had broadcasted them, and save enough on the pea to pay 
for several cultivations, and the vines will make a better growth. See page 
21 for cover crops. 
There are many different ways of training grape vines in a commer- 
cial vineyard. The underlying principles are the same in every case. 
• \° depends upon the circumstances, soil, and climate of the 
individual grower. A grape vine is pruned in order to reduce the amount 
of wood, and to limit the amount of fruit, and to keep the plant within 
reasonable shape and grounds. 
Grapes must have very heavy annual pruning, and all methods of 
training the vine depend upon renewing the fruit-bearing wood every 
year. The grower must understand this, and must realize that after 
the vineyard is once started, as much wood must be cut out each season 
as grows during that season. If this is not done, there will be too many 
truit-bearing canes, which will cause the vine to over-bear, and it will be 
so weakened the next year that it can not produce very much fruit. 
The grapes are borne on the small shoots of the present season 
which grew from canes of the previous season. To illustrate: During 
last summer a vine put out a number of strong, vigorous canos or shoots. 
Ihese were about the size of a lead pencil and several feet long, with a 
number of buds along their entire length. This coming spring a shoot 
will grow out from each of the buds along the canes, and the grapes are 
borne on the new wood near the base of the shoot. If the vine is strong 
enough, every one of the buds along the cane will make a shoot which 
will bear grapes, but there are so many of these canes that the vine is 
not strong enough to produce fruit on all of them. 
From this you will see there are two' facts which govern the pruning 
of grape vines. 
First, the grapes are produced on the shoots which grow out early in 
the spring, and if the cane is not cut back the vine will grow longer each 
year, and the bearing wood will be farther and farther away from the 
roots. 
Second, no vine is ever strong enough to produce fruit on all the 
shoots which grow from one-year canes, and for that reason the one-year 
cane must be shortened back, to limit the amount of fruit which the vine 
will set. 
All methods of pruning grape vines are based on these two facts. 
Every method provides for a permanent arm or central trunk; at the be- 
ginning of the season's growth there are a number of one-year canes left 
on this main trunk. In the fall, after the foliage is off, all the two-year- 
old wood is cut off and a certain number of one-year-old canes are left to 
produce the fruit next year. The central arm or stub is the only pcrma- 
