Practical papers—Grape Growing. 
387 
them have long been in use. The most frequent with us are the 
arbor, the stake, the vertical, the oblique stems and the hori¬ 
zontal arm. Of these I have tried several, carefully exam¬ 
ined others, and from experience and observation I give a de¬ 
cided preference to the horizontal arm and spur system. The 
arbor is adapted more for ornament and shade than for the pro¬ 
duction of fruit. 
The objection I find to the vertical or spiral cane trained to 
the stake, is that the shoots grow laterally; the foliage and fruit 
droop, and, hanging in masses, afford hiding places for insects, 
collect and hold moisture, thus inducing mildew and other dis¬ 
eases; the stakes break in storms unless frequently renewed, with 
liability to injure both vine and fruit. In the vertical and oblique 
training of the stem, I find nothing that cannot be better at¬ 
tained with the horizontal arm. 
While I would not deny that good fruit is often produced by 
all of these systems, there is one serious objection to them all. 
The canes or stems growing more or less upright, the tendency of 
the sap is rapidly to the extremities, and the most rapid growth 
and best fruit is usually found on the highest shoots, while lower 
shoots will be feeble, the fruit they produce inferior, and the vine 
out of balance. 
/ 
There are those who insist that we must follow nature strictly, 
in growing the grape. While I would take nature as my guide, 
it might be found that we differ only in our interpretation of her. 
If we observe the vine in the forest, we find it spreading over the 
loftiest trees or covering the humblest shrub. In either case the 
fruit is borne at the top ; for while growing upright it produces its 
9 
most vigorous growth of wood, but little fruit. It does not pro¬ 
duce fruit in abundance until it reaches a point where it must 
spread out horizontally, and it matters not whether this be on the 
highest trees or lowest shrub. If then the horizontal is the natural 
and best position that can be given the vine to develope its fruit¬ 
ing powers, (and this is the main object in all the various meth¬ 
ods of training and pruning) the earlier we can give it this posi¬ 
tion the better. 
With the horizontal arm we obtain this from the start. The 
upright bearing shoots being equally spread out along the arms 
