href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@39779@[email protected]#i048" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">High Renewal with Four Canes

47 17. High Renewal Complete 48 18. A Slat Trellis, with Upright Training 51 19. Fan Training, after Pruning 55 20. William Kniffin 57 21. The True Kniffin Training 59 22. No. 21, when Pruned 60 23. A Poor Type of Kniffin 64 24. The Y-Trunk Kniffin 65 25. Umbrella Training 67 26. A Poor Umbrella System 68 27. Eight-Cane Kniffin (Diagram) 70 28. Overhead Kniffin 71 29. Overhead Kniffin 72 30. Overhead Kniffin, before Pruning 73 31. Cross-Wire Training 75 32. Cross-Wire Training, Outside View 76 33. Munson Training. End View 78 34. Munson Training. Side View 79 35. Horizontal Training 83 36. Low Post Training 86 37. A Yearling Graft 91

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PREFACE.

THIS LITTLE book has grown out of an attempt to teach the principles and methods of grape training to college students. I have found such teaching to be exceedingly difficult and unsatisfactory. It is impossible to firmly impress the lessons by mere lectures. The student must apprehend the principles slowly and by his own effort. He must have time to thoroughly assimilate them before he attempts to apply them. I therefore cast about for books which I could put before my class, but I at once found that there are very few succinct accounts of the subjects of grape pruning and training, and that none of our books portray the methods which are most largely practised in the large grape regions of the east. My only recourse, therefore, was to put my own notes into shape for print, and this I have now done. And inasmuch as all grape-growers are students, I hope that the simple account will find a use beyond the classroom.

This lack of adequate accounts of grape training at first astonished me, but is not strange after all. It must be remembered that the cultivation of the native grape is of very recent origin. There are many men who can remember its beginning in a commercial way. It seldom occurs to the younger generation, which is familiar with the great vineyards in many states, that the Concord is yet scarcely forty years old, and that all grape growing in eastern America is yet in an experimental stage. Progress has been so rapid in recent years that the new methods outstrip the books. The old horizontal arm spur system, which is still the chief method in the books, has evolved itself into a high renewal training, which is widely used but which has not found its way into the manuals. The Kniffin type has outgrown its long period of incubation, and is now taking an assured place in vineyard management. So two great types, opposed in method, are now contending for supremacy, and they will probably form the basis of all future developments. This evolution of American grape training is one of the most unique and signal developments of our modern horticulture, and its very recent departure from the early doubts and trials is a fresh illustration of the youth and virility of all horticultural pursuits in North America.

This development of our grape training should form the subject of a historical inquiry. I have not attempted such in this little hand-book. I have omitted all reference to the many early methods, which were in most cases transportations or modifications of European practices, for their value is now chiefly historical and their insertion here would only confuse the reader. I have attempted nothing more than a plain account of the methods now in use; in fact, I am aware that I have not accomplished even this much, for there are various methods which I have not