9. SHORT ARM SPUR TRAINING.
The horizontal arm training is less popular than it was twenty years ago. It has serious faults, especially in the persistence of the old spurs, and probably will eventually give place to other systems. Aside from the spur pruning, the system is much like the following, which is a modification to allow of a renewal pruning and to which the reader is referred for further details. This modification, which may be called the High Renewal, and which is one of the most serviceable of any of the styles of training, although it has never been fully described, we shall now consider.
The High Renewal, or upright training which is now very extensively employed in the lake regions of New York and elsewhere, starts the head or branches of the vine from eighteen to thirty inches from the ground. The ideal height for most varieties is probably about two feet to the first wire, although thirty inches is better than eighteen. If the vines are lower than two feet, they are liable to be injured by the plow or cultivator, the earth is dashed against the clusters by heavy rains, and if the shoots become loose they strike the ground and the grapes are soon soiled. A single trunk or arm is carried up to the required height, or if good branches happen to form lower down, two main canes are carried from this point up to the required distance to meet the lower wire, so that the trunk becomes Y-shaped, as seen in figs. [10], [16] and [17]. In fact, vineyardists usually prefer to have this head or crotch a few inches below the lowest wire, to facilitate the spreading and placing of the canes. The trellis for the upright systems nearly always comprises three wires, although only two are sometimes used for the smaller growing varieties, and very rarely four are used for the strongest kinds, although this number is unnecessary. The lowest wire is stretched at eighteen, twenty-four or thirty inches from the ground, and the two upper ones are placed at distances of eighteen or twenty inches apart.
10. THE SECOND SEASON OF UPRIGHT TRAINING.
11. making the T-head.
The second season after planting should see the vine tied to the first wire. [Fig. 10] is a photograph taken in July, 1892, of a Concord vine which was set in the spring of 1891. In the fall of 1891 the vine was cut back to three or four buds, and in the spring of 1892 two of these buds were allowed to make canes. These two canes are now tied to the wire, which was stretched in the spring of 1892. In this case, the branches start near the surface of the ground. Sometimes only a single strong shoot grows, and in order to secure the two branches it is broken over where it passes the wire, and is usually tied to a stake to afford support. [Fig. 11] shows this operation. A bud will develop at the bend or break, from which a cane can be trained in the opposite direction from the original portion, and the T-head is secured.