pe the vine. Suckers and water-sprouts are less
common on well-trained vines. It is necessary, too, by training to
keep the bunches away from trunk, canes and other bunches and so
prevent injury to the grapes.

Lastly, fashion, taste or a more or less abnormal use of the grapes,
may prescribe the form in which a vine is trained. Fashion and taste
run from very simple or natural styles to exceedingly complex, formal
ones, depending, often, on the variety, the environment or other
condition, but just as often on the whim of the grape-grower. The
grape is a favorite ornamental for fences, arbors and to cover
buildings; for all of these purposes the vines must be trained as
occasion calls.

SOME PRINCIPLES OF PRUNING

Leaving the shaping of the plant out of consideration and having in
mind pruning proper, all efforts in pruning are directed toward two
objects: (1) The production of leafy shoots to increase the vigor of
the plant. (2) The promotion of the formation of fruit-buds. The
first, in common parlance, is pruning for wood; the second, pruning
for fruit.

_Pruning for wood._

Some grapes, in common with varieties of all fruits, produce excessive
crops of fruit so that the plants exhaust themselves, to their
permanent injury and to the detriment of the crop. Something must be
done to restore and increase vegetative vigor. The most natural
procedure is to lessen the struggle for existence among the parts of
the plant. The richer and the more abundant the supply of the food
solution, the greater the vegetative activity, the larger the leaves
and the larger and stouter the internodes. Obviously, the supply of
food solution for each bud may be increased by decreasing the number
of buds. The weaker the plants, therefore, the more the vine should be
cut. The severe pruning in the first two years of the vine's existence
is an example of pruning for wood. The vine is pruned for wood in the
resting period between the fall of leaf and the swelling of buds the
following spring.

_Pruning for fruit._

Growers of all fruits soon learn that excessive vegetative vigor is
not usually accompanied by fruitfulness. Too great vigor is indicated
by long, leafy, unbranching shoots. Some fruit-growers go so far as to
say that fruitfulness is inversely proportionate to vegetative vigor.
There are several methods of diminishing the vigor of the vine; as,
withholding water and fertilizers, stopping tillage, the method of
training a