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 mentioned. But these omitted forms are mostly of local use or adaptation, and they are usually only modifications of the main types here explained. It is impossible to describe all the variations in grape training in a book of pocket size; neither is it necessary. Nearly every grower who has given grape raising careful attention has introduced into his own vineyard some modifications which he thinks are of special value to him. There are various curious and instructive old books to which the reader can go if he desires to know the history and evolution of grape training in America. He will find that we have now passed through the long and costly experiment with European systems. And we have also outgrown the gross or long-wood styles, and now prune close with the expectation of obtaining superior and definite results.
I have not attempted to rely upon my own resources in the preparation of this book. All the manuscript has been read by three persons—by George C. Snow, Penn Yan, N. Y., William D. Barns, Middle Hope, N. Y., and L. C. Corbett, my assistant in the Cornell Experiment Station. Mr. Snow is a grower in the lake region of western New York, and employs the High Renewal system; Mr. Barns is a grower in the Hudson River valley, and practices the Kniffin system; while Mr. Corbett has been a student of all the systems and has practiced two or three of them in commercial plantations. These persons have made many suggestions of which I have been glad to avail myself, and to them very much of the value of the book is to be attributed.
L. H. BAILEY,
Ithaca, N. Y., Feb. 1, 1893.
JOHN ADLUM, of the District of Columbia, appears to have been the first person to systematically undertake the cultivation and amelioration of the native grapes. His method of training, as described in 1823, is as follows: One shoot is allowed to grow the first year, and this is cut back to two buds the first fall. The second year two shoots are allowed to grow, and they are tied to "two stakes fixed down to the side of each plant, about five or six feet high;" in the fall each cane is cut back to three or four buds. In the third spring, these two short canes are spread apart "so as to make an angle of about forty-five degrees with the stem," and are tied to stakes; this season about two shoots are allowed to grow from each branch, making four in all, and in the fall the outside ones are cut back to three or four buds and the inner ones to two. These outside shoots are to bear the fruit the fourth year, and the inside ones give rise to renewal canes. These two outer canes or branches are secured to two stakes set about sixteen inches upon either side of the vine, and the shoots are tied up to the stakes, as they grow. The renewal shoots from the inside stubs are tied to a third stake set near the root of the vine. The outside branches are to be cut away entirely at the end of the fourth year. This is an ingenious renewal post system, and it is easy to see how the Horizontal Arm and High Renewal systems may have sprung from it.
AMERICAN GRAPE TRAINING.