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Show " TFrom the American Garden. i , pruning Grapu Vinos. , ; ' ' THU KNIKKIN SYSTEM. i Probably there is no one thing in connection with growing Grapes that is so little understood, under-stood, or on which there is n wider diversity . "'-l'. of opinions and practice, than in pruning the . j vines. 1 ' '- 't 'These various systems and methods, and the . ; often ambiguous language employed in describ- f !j log them, even with illustrations, are apt to con- , , ( ! I fuse the ordinary rriind so that, after perusal, the , i' reader has no definite or intelligent idea of how I, ,' to proceed to bring about a desired result. 1 As a rule, I think the great majority who trim ' r- Grape vines leave too much.1 wood. I have, come ;t 4 i to this conclusion from seeing a good deal of ' . Rework done by professional .(.) gardeners: : The . ' ) 1 . . U1: ., . vines are overtaxed in bearing, or attempting more than they can accomplish. The clusters become be-come smaller, the fruit rots, the vine is enfeebled and exhausted, and " Grapes do not amount to much." Of course, where shade is the permanent perma-nent object, the trimming will not need to be so close as where fine fruit is most desirable, and for the former purpose such strong-growing varieties as Clinton, Concord, Elvira, etc.. should be employed. em-ployed. Hence the difficulty of laying down any fixed rules to suit all cases. If Mr. Brown needs a large crop of fruit for his own consumption, it is not a niatter of much importance im-portance to him whether the clusters are large and handsome, or not, if there is only ,an abundance abund-ance of them; while to Mr. Jpnes, wanting his crop for sale, large,.perfect clusters are of the utmost ut-most importance, and 200 pounds of such fruit would be worth more to him than 300- pounds of Mr. Brown's would, and the method of pruning may be the sole cause of the difference. , Fall pruning is oftpn recommended by writers on the subject, and is one of those operations in the garden gar-den that can be done to forward spring work, as there is generally plenty of time that ' can be spared for this purpose during favorable fall weather, while, if deferred till February, the usual usu-al time, cold, stormy weather, or other contingencies, contingen-cies, may arise to make the worktcdious and disagreeable, dis-agreeable, if not prevent it altogether till late in spring, when other work is pressing. I Ji'-l once knew sC city- gcHyemaiinvlitfalways'madc it a practice to trim his vines on Thanksgiving day, unless stormy weather prevented. By this time the wood, is ripened, and the foliage has accomplished its mission. The advocates of fall pruning I believe almost invariably recommend recom-mend to leave more buds than in winter pruning, especially if tlw vines arc td be removed from the trellis and laid down, for the purpose of guarding against the loss of any buds that might occur in handling. In such cases, another pruning or rubbing rub-bing off of surplus buds, in spring, will be necessary. In large vineyards, winter pruning is preferred, us it can be done at a season of comparative leisure. leis-ure. The time required to do it in the fall would materially interfere with other work; but if the! wood is to be used for propagation, fall pruuing s best. The "Kniffin" system, now so generally practiced prac-ticed in the Hudson River Grapo region, is the easiest, simplest, and cheapest of any I have yet seen, and has become so popular there that hundreds hun-dreds and thousands of acres have been, changed from the "Fuller" and other methods to this. Two wires only are used, three and a half and six feet from the ground respectively. Each vine has four arms, eighteen to twenty inches loug, or about five buds on each, two arms on each wire which are renewed each year by removing- each arm up, to the shoot nearest the trunk of the vine cutting those off to five buds, and tying them down , in place of the arms removed. A vine thus pruned resembles somewhat two T's, one above the other. The buds from these1 ! arms arc allowed to grow and care for themselves generally, and, with a little labor and attention, .by stopping the laterals at one leaf and renioving, the fruit from the bud intended for next year's arm, if itshould prove too weak to carry itandniake suf- -ficient growth at the same timc,--they can almost , invariably be depended on. Aside from :the Sim- j plicity, saving oflabor, and economy of wire in the trellis, it has the advantage that the lowest ( 1 ' . 1 ' 1 xt O rJ"' fl fruit is far enough from'-tlioi'gr'ouridj to keep it '. clean, and with moderate stooping one can pass from one trellis to another without being- com- H pelled to goo the end of one, as istthecas'e when four or more wjres are used. Tbcisujnmcr prun- " . ing consists in nothing more than clipping off the ends of Some shoots tliat may chsinc'e to grow tco rampant. J This, like any other system, is subject to m4diii-cations, m4diii-cations, onq of which is to have but two arms to the vine, each tree feet long, and have csifch 'tllter- nate vine take the upper wire, the. others the low- H cr one. It is frequently recommended, and , sometimes practiced by those who know no better, to cut away the vines or remove the 'leaves to let ixv the sunshine to ripen the fruiti I hope no reader of 'M Thk American Garden will listen to dr prctice , any such nonsense as that. I The aflect of the sunshine on.the frnlt.is through 'H the leaves and roots, by warming the ground. jH The fruit could better dispense with tVe sunshine than with the leaves, as they bear the samejrela-tion samejrela-tion to the fruit that our lungs do to our body. Reader, plant a few more vines! t ' V - O |