The Grape
by F.R. Elliot
Reprinted from Hand Book for Fruit Growers second edition by F.R. Elliot copyright 1877. This is a valuable little book in many respects for it shows us how sophisticated some of the understandings and practices were 135 years ago. We must protect this information to protect our future knowledge and choices. Biodiversity married to a working respect for what went before gives us more than hope. LRM
We have shown in a former article, a chapter how to form the grape cutting for out of door growing. We now propose to show how to plant and prune the grape, which next to, if not superior to the pear, is bound to be part and parcel of every small homestead, and from it, on to its hundreds of acres for supply of its luscious and healthful food to the millions that have no garden grounds.
Once upon a time, the writer had much to do with varieties of grapes, the growing from cuttings, layers, etc., and came to the conclusion that a good, strong, healthy, well rooted plant, grown with space of one foot apart, was better and more likely to be successful than the plant grown from a single eye and only three inches apart in a frame. My estimate is now appreciated by one who watched my work, and who says now that every yearling grape grown from a cutting should have eighteen inches of space to make it really valuable.
But let me show the reader of this book my illustrations of how I made cuttings, and how the roots and growth showed. They all had the same care and soil. As before said, in an item of how to form a grape cutting for out-door culture, we present the following illustrations. Figure A shows a cutting of two buds, all the lower part being rasped with a coarse wood file, crosswise over the surface, and breaking up the continuity of outline, tearing and destroying the outer cuticle or bark, and rendering the wood more accessible to the action of moisture and heat. Some growers shave all the bark off from the lower end of the cutting. There are some doubts of the practical value of this method. We have been unable to perceive that the cuttings so shaved or rasped made any more certain or vigorous growth. In Delaware and Nortons we fail to grow, say ten per cent. Why, when they all apparently are equally good cuttings, have the same handling, etc., is this so?
Figure B is a representation of a two-eyed Delaware, prepared and grown with the rasping process. The lower roots were strong and good, but the wood below the bud all destroyed.
The cutting called the mallet differs only in the fact that it is made with an inch or less of the old, or two-year-old wood attached to the base of the cutting; and in that attachment of base or crown, are supposed to be stored up a greater amount of vital, life-giving power than can be concentrated in any one distinct bud, that junction or bud being, in fact, filled with buds, dormant so long as the main bud exists, but ready to do service as soon as that is destroyed.
Figure C shows a representation of this cutting; and we are strongly disposed to believe that when the most sound, healthy plants, vigorous in every essential of vital life, are wanted, they must be procured from cuttings made to embrace this junction of old and new wood; wherein, as in the crown of the seedling tree, the most of life-giving power exists. We do not doubt but that under care and culture, the plants grown from single eyes, or two-eyed cuttings of last year’s wood, may in time become full and perfect; but their growth is constantly enfeebled, and more and more, as the buds from which they are grown are destitute of full and perfect life.
The ground in which these were planted, after being kept in sand, so that they exhibited a slight callous or little white lip of delicate tissue, just around the outer edge of the lower cut was of a light sandy loam, and after planting the cuttings, old tan-bark was spread two inches deep over them.
Most of the cuttings were put under the soil two inches above the top of the bud.
Fig. 1 is from one of the strongest woods and buds, having an inch of wood below the bud. Its roots and top are strong; the number of large roots not as many as in fig. B; but they are longer and stronger. Let me say just here that the wood growth was not all alike.
Fig. 2 is a representation of a single bud of wood like fig. 1; but its vitality was not the same, consequently the growth is not the same.
Fig. 3 shows the growth of roots and top of fig. 1, in the spring of the following year.
It is to be regretted that I have now no drawing of the roots of the best of the cuttings, as the mallet cutting having a piece of the old wood at the base of lower bud of the cutting.
Having shown partly, but not quite fully, the growing from the cutting, let me come to quotations of a thoroughbred cultivator of the grape, and I believe the readers of this book will not regret it.
He says, “I have been looking over my former year’s work, have been reading back or rather over again the views of others, and, after studying all, I took my spade and digging fork and went to an Isabella vine, planted some ten years or more since, and which has never shown any disease, but yearly ripened its fruit regularly and evenly. It was in clay soil. I dug carefully all around it a distance of four feet each way from the vine, or eight feet diameter, took out a trench with spade, then with my fork I commenced to shake out roots, but there was no direct tap-root of any size, and altogether the larger portion of the roots were within ten inches of the surface. Small roots, as large as a goose quill, it is true, were apparently down below. Some of them pulled up in lifting the vine, others broke off, but there was not a large or main root so situated.”
It may not be that this is any guide showing the general habit of roots of the vine, when grown in vineyards of clay soils and yearly pruned; but for the present I think I will so consider it, and when I plant, avoid as I have generally heretofore, setting my roots too deep. Most writers on the grape tell us that the roots must be planted deep, at least they must have ten inches of soil over and above the upper root of the plant; and they tell us that if the plants are too small for such purpose, then we must excavate a basin, set the plant, and as it grows, fill up around the stem. In my soil, if the spring proved a rainy one, were I to plant in that way I should have my labor for my pains; for all the plants would rot before they could possibly grow sufficiently to allow the earth to be drawn to a level.
The following figure shows this mode of planting as I understand it:
A straight line drawn across from the ends of the dotted line would show the level of the ground; the dotted line the excavation, with the plant having two eyes, and set in just deep enough to cover the lower eye or bud with soil. The roots are shortened as here shown, to about eighteen inches in length, and spread out regularly, setting the base of the main stem on a little mound or rise – not a sharp cone, but a broad mound.
I have practiced this mode as an experiment, and with a disposition to try all ways, but in three successive years I failed of getting as early a growth, nor did my vines make up for lost time in the hot months of summer, as has been sometimes stated they would.
The next manner of planting, highly recommended by good cultivators, I have followed with good results. It is to prepare the ground where this plant is to stand by finely pulverizing it, then excavate a breadth or circle sufficiently wide to admit of straightening out the entire roots of the vine without cutting away a single inch; make the excavation about six inches deep at the outside of the circle, and rising so that the center is four inches below the level of the surrounding ground. The accompanying figure shows this method, the straight line being the surface of the earth, the dotted line below that of the mound on which the plant is placed before filling in the earth. This depth for planting I believe is a good one, but I fail to find any gain from leaving so much root; and as it increases the labor and expense of planting fully one-half, I think I shall follow out my old plan, viz: — with my knife I cut away every small fiber or thread-like root, and all that are as large around as one of Faber’s lead pencils, I shorten back to sixteen or eighteen inches, then prepare my holes with the mound in center, and plant just as when the roots are of full length.
I never use any water or muck for dipping my roots when setting, but I keep them well wrapped in a wet cloth, from which I take out one at a time, as wanted for planting.
As an item of record, it may be well to say, that single grape vines trained upon a wall, say of a house or barn, and well supplied with food at the root, will often produce all that one family would need. On Kelley island, we once saw a vine of Catawba, the roots of which were near where the daily wash of slops, soap-suds, etc., were thrown from the house, and from which, yearly, two to three hundred pounds of ripe grapes were gathered.
It is said that one of the largest grape vines in the world is at Montecilo, near Santa Barbara, California. It is estimated to be over one hundred years old, is nearly five feet in circumference, and rises eight feet erect from the root, where it branches out in every direction. It is said to have produced six tons of grapes in one season, and that fifteen hundred gallons of wine have been made from it in one year.
WHEN TO PRUNE
The best time is just at the fall of the vine leaf in October. Let the main pruning be at that time, if it be possible to command that time; but if the work cannot then be done, do it if you can, before severe freezing weather; if not then done, postpone it until there comes a regular thaw in winter – say a week or ten days of soft, moist weather, when the frost is nearly or quite out of the ground – and then don’t neglect your duty any longer.
HOW TO PRUNE
This is the second question, and one that is answered so variously by writers on grape growing, and is talked of so oppositely by vignerons, that an answer in any way will be said by some to be assuming; but, having studied the grape pretty thoroughly, and having read every treatise of which we have ever heard, and practiced, or observed the practice of each writer, we feel that what we say of “How to Prune,” if practiced, will result in success to the proprietor of the vine on which it is performed.
Each variety almost, will, after the first two years, require a distinct system – so that any general rule for grape pruning of our vines would fall to the ground if attempted to be practiced. The grape grower must first learn the habit and character of his variety, and then he can adapt his pruning and training to a mode or system consonant with its class.
But, of “How to Prune,” let us say, first, that summer pruning – that is, cutting away of foliage after the blossom has opened – is now counted, by the majority of vignerons, as an error; and the reason for the error is, that each leaf and end of a shoot has a corresponding connection with the spongioles or feeding ends of the roots, and once the leaf or shoot connecting therewith is broken, the spongiole rootlet, or feeding mouth, is affected – is closed from its natural action, and, as a consequence, rot and decay ensue, creating at the root of the vine, a fungoid disease which, if the same system of summer pruning were persisted in, would, in a few years, result in apparent outward disease of the vine, and in rot and mildew of the fruit.
Having said this much of summer pruning, let us now suppose you have a vine planted this past spring, and that you have permitted it, as you should, to grow just as many or just as few shoots or vines as it pleased; but now you want to put it into shape, so that next year it will increase in strength of root and prepare itself to give you fruit the year following. Take then your knife and cut away all the small canes, selecting the largest and best in the center, or as grown from the strongest center bud, and cut that so that your vine will be as represented in Fig. 1.
This first season all vines may be acceptably pruned in this way; but when the growth in spring comes, it behooves the grower to know his vine and his soil. For while a Concord, Hartford, Norton, etc., will in good soil be the better for permitting the three buds here shown to grow, the Delaware, Rebecca, Mottled, Elsinborough and some others, will be better to have only two buds permitted to grow. As the buds start in spring there will be more or less of sucker sprouts start from the root, and the dormant bud at base of the main bud will often start; the vine must then be watched, and as soon as a shoot appears, other than the two or three strong ones from the regular buds, they should be at once rubbed out, and thenceforward, during the summer, rub or prune no more; let all grow; for although old time cultivators will tell you to cut or pull away the laterals, we tell you that the laterals serve to add to the size and vigor of the lower part of the cane, and the buds thereon, and every additional ripened leaf adds to the volume and strength of the root for the coming year’s aid.
Supposing your vine to have been a Delaware or Rebecca, or any of that class of short jointed, comparatively slow growers, it will, at the close of the second season, present much the appearance of Fig. 2; but if it has been a Concord, Hartford, Wilder, etc., then you must add a third cane to make our figure exhibit what your vine should be in September of the year.
And now your season for pruning has again come, and by its pruning you hope for fruit the coming season. Your Concord, Hartford, or other strong growing kinds, having been grown to three strong canes, if your posts and wires are put up, and it is pruned and tied, it will, or should, look very much like Fig. 3.
Each of these canes has three buds, and the two upper buds on each cane are to produce fruit, while the cane on the lower bud is to have whatever fruit it will set rubbed away, and the canes trained for fruiting another year.
On vines – say those of five or more years old, and with such varieties as Concord, etc. – these canes should be much longer, and have, when pruned in autumn, from eight to ten buds each, and then in spring, each alternate bud should be rubbed out, just before the blossoming of the vine. Fig. 4 is a representative of an irregular grown vine of the past or second year, and now cut to two canes of four buds each, with a spur cane at the base of one of them, from which to grow canes for the coming or succeeding year. This, with its four buds to a cane, it is supposed to or/should have the lower and the third bud rubbed out before the setting of fruit, while the upper and second buds will give each three bunches, making twelve bunches, full as much as any young vine should bear. So much, in a condensed form, of “How to Prune.”
Thus far the vines have been trained to simple rough stakes; but now the trellis must be erected, as the next or third season will require its use. Iron wire is found the cheapest and best for the purpose; the tendrils of the vine cling to it, which they never do to wood, and thus very much of the labor of tying is saved. The size of the wire generally used is classed as No. 9. It should be annealed in order to make it tough.
ROWS OF TRELLIS
“The rows of the trellis,” say some vignerons, “should run north and south, because at the period that the grapes are ripening they obtain more of the direct rays of the sun than when they run east and west; the sun being low at that season, part of the vines are always in the shade.” Other practical men urge the east and west lines, “because,” they say, “at the season of ripening of the grapes, the midday suns heat and reflect from the ground much stronger upon the full face of the vine, than when the rows are north and south.”
I have seen the perfect ripening of both lines, and consider that more is due to the cultivation, soil and pruning than the position of the trellis.
PUTTING UP THE TRELLIS
Strong posts are to be set at each end of the rows and braced, as shown in Figure 3. These braces are from eight to twelve feet long, and fastened at the bottom to a post set firm in the ground; then at a distance of eighteen to twenty feet on the line of the row, set other posts, leaving each post about six feet out of the ground.
NUMBER OF WIRES
Three to four wires are required placed at a distance of eighteen to twenty inches upward from the ground. Three wires are sufficient except for very strong vines, when the fourth is advisable for the purpose of securing the upper growths, and preventing their falling down over the lower vines and fruit.
The vines should be fastened at one end post, then stretched along the line. At each middle or intervening post the wires are raised and a staple is driven partially into the post in such manner as to keep the wire at the required height. Next, the wires are drawn as tight as possible and fastened at the opposite end, and then each staple on the intervening post is driven home, so as to fully secure the wire and cause a certain amount of strain to rest on each post.
