training is largely a convenience, and there are as many methods as there are fancies among grape growers.

1. GRAPE SHOOT.

All intelligent pruning of the grape rests upon the fact that the fruit is borne in a few clusters near the base of the growing shoots of the season, and which spring from wood of last year's growth. It may be said here that a growing, leafy branch of the grape vine is called a shoot; a ripened shoot is called a cane; a branch or trunk two or more years old is called an arm. Fig. 1 is a shoot as it appears in the northern states in June. The whole shoot has grown within a month, from a bud. As it grew, flower clusters appeared and these are to bear the grapes. Flowering is now over, but the shoot will continue to grow, perhaps to the length of ten or twenty feet. At picking time, therefore, the grapes all hang near the lower end or base of the shoots or new canes, as in fig. 2. Each bud upon the old cane, therefore, produces a new cane, which may bear fruit as well as leaves. At the close of the season, this long ripened shoot or cane has produced a bud every foot or less, from which new fruit-bearing shoots are to spring next year. But if all these buds were allowed to remain, the vine would be overtaxed with fruit the coming year and the crop would be a failure. The cane is, therefore, cut off until it bears only as many buds as experience has taught us the vine should carry. The cane may be cut back to five or ten buds, and perhaps some of these buds will be removed, or "rubbed off," next spring if the young growth seems to be too thick, or if the plant is weak. Each shoot will bear, on an average, two or three clusters. Some shoots will bear no clusters. From one to six of the old canes, each bearing from five to ten buds, are left each spring. The number of clusters which a vine can carry well depends upon the variety, the age and size of the vine, the style of the training, and the soil and cultivation. Experience is the only guide. A strong vine of Concord, which is a prolific variety, trained upon any of the ordinary systems and set nine or ten feet apart each way, will usually carry from thirty to sixty clusters. The clusters will weigh from a fourth to a half pound each. Twelve or fifteen pounds of marketable grapes is a fair or average crop for such a Concord vine, and twenty-five pounds is a very heavy crop.

2. THE BEARING WOOD.

The pruning of the grape vine, therefore, is essentially a thinning process. In the winter pruning, all the canes of the last season's growth are cut away except from two to six, which are left to make the fruit and wood of the next year; and each of these remaining canes is headed back to from three to ten buds. The number and length of the canes which are left after the pruning depend upon the style of training which is practiced. A vine which may completely cover a trellis in the fall, will be cut back so severely that a novice will fear that the plant is ruined. But the operator bears in mind the fact that the grape, unlike the apple, pear and peach, does not bear distinct fruit-buds in the fall, but buds which produce both fruit and wood the following season.

3. DIAGRAM.

Let us now suppose, therefore, that we have pruned our vine in the fall of 1891 to two canes, each bearing ten buds. We will call these canes A and B, respectively. (Fig. 3.) In 1892, therefore, twenty shoots grow from them, and each of these shoots or new canes branches, or produces laterals. We will call these new canes of 1892, A 1, A 2, A 3, B 1, B 2, and so on. Each of the new canes bears at the base about two clusters of grapes, giving a total yield of about forty clusters. These clusters stand opposite the leaves, as seen in fig. 1. In the axil of each leaf a bud is formed which will produce a cane, and perhaps fruit, in 1893. If each of these new canes, A 1, A 2, etc., produce ten buds—which is a moderate number—the vine would go into the winter of 1892-3 with 200 buds for the next year's growth and crop; but these buds should be reduced to about twenty, as they were in the fall of 1891. That is, every year we go back again to the same number of buds, and the top of the vine gets no larger from year to year. We must, therefore, cut back again to two canes. We cut back each of the original canes, A and B, to one new cane. That is, we leave only A 1 and B 1, cutting off A 2, A 3, etc., and B 2, B 3, etc. This brings the vine back to very nearly its condition in the fall of 1891; but the new canes, A 1 and B 1, which are now to become the main canes by being bent down horizontally, were borne at some distance—say three or four inches—from the base of the original canes, A and B, so that the permanent part of the vine is constantly lengthening itself. This annually lengthening portion is called a spur. Spurs are rarely or never made in this exact position, however, although this diagrammatic sketch illustrates clearly the method of their formation. The common method of spurring is that connected with the horizontal arm system of training, in which the canes A and B are allowed to become permanent arms, and the upright canes, A 1, A 2, B 1, B 2, B 3, etc., are cut back to within two or three buds of the arms each year. The cane A 1, for instance, is cut back in the fall of 1892 to two or three buds, and in 1893 two or three canes will grow from this stub. In the fall of 1893 only one cane is left after the pruning, and this one is cut back to two or three buds; and so on. So the spur grows higher every year, although every effort is made to keep it short, both by reducing the number of buds to one or two and by endeavoring to bring out a cane lower down on the spur every few years. Fig. 4 shows a short spur of two years' standing. The horizontal portion shows the permanent arm. The first upright portion is the remains of the first-year cane and the upper portion is the second-year cane after it is cut back in the fall. In this instance, the cane is cut back to one fruiting bud, b, the small buds, a a, being rubbed out. There are serious objections to spurs in any position. They become hard and comparatively lifeless after a time, it is often difficult to replace them by healthy fresh wood, and the bearing portion of the vine is constantly receding from the main trunk. The bearing wood should spring from near the central portions of the vine, or be kept "near the head,"