out six shoots on each side. The grapes set at the
base of the shoots so that the bunches hang one over the other, making
a pretty sight. This method is too expensive for a commercial vineyard
but is often used in gardens and for ornamental plantings. Only
weak-growing sorts, as Delaware, Iona or Diana are adapted for this
method. Delaware does remarkably well under horizontal training. The
use of slats and wires in horizontal training are often reversed. The
alternative from the method just described is to set posts sixteen or
eighteen feet apart upon which are strung two wires as for the
ordinary trellis. Perpendicular slats are then fastened to these
wires to which the shoots are tied. Two slats, fifteen inches apart,
are provided on each side of a fruiting cane, which, with the slat for
the support of the cane, give five to a vine. Or the vine may be
supported by a stake driven in the ground.
In both of these methods, a shoot must be taken out from the head of
the vine each season for the next season's fruiting-wood. This shoot
is tied to the central wire or slat and is now allowed to fruit. Thus
the vine starts each spring with a single cane. Grapes are grown under
these horizontal methods chiefly, if not only, in the Hudson River
Valley and even here they are going out of use.
TRAINING ON ARBORS, PERGOLAS AND AS ORNAMENTALS
The grape is much used to cover arbors, pergolas, lattices and to
screen the sides of buildings, few climbing plants being more
ornamental. Leaf, fruit and vine have been favorite subjects for
reproduction by ornamentalists of all ages. As yet, however, it is
seldom seen in cultivated landscapes except to secure shade and
seclusion.
Grown for aesthetic purposes, the grape is seldom fruitful, for the
vines can rarely be cultivated or deprived of their luxuriant growth
as in the vineyard. Nevertheless, grapes grown as ornamentals can be
trained so as to serve the double purpose of ornamental and
fruit-bearing plant. Grown on the sides of a building, the grape often
can be made to bear large crops of choicely fine fruit. The ancients
had learned this, for the Psalmist says: "Thy wife shall be like the
fruitful vine by the sides of thine house."
In all ornamental plantings on arbors or pergolas, if fruit is to be
considered, the permanent trunk is carried to the top of the
structure. Along this trunk, at intervals of eighteen inches, spurs
are left from which to renew the wood from yea
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