ts are hard or
soft wood. The longest and largest staples are used with soft woods,
as cedar or chestnut. An acre requires from nine to twelve pounds of
staples. The wires should be placed on the windward sides of posts and
on the up-hill side in hillside vineyards. The distance between wires
depends on the method of pruning.

The wires must be stretched taut on the posts, for which purpose any
one of a half-dozen good wire stretchers may be purchased at hardware
stores. Some growers loosen the wires after harvest to allow for the
contraction in cold weather and others use some one of several devices
to relieve the strain. Most growers, however, find it necessary to go
over the vineyard each spring to drive down loosened posts and stretch
sagging wires, and so take no precautions to release wires in the
fall. All agree that the wires must be kept tight during the growing
season to protect buds, foliage and fruit from being injured from
whipping.

_Tying._

The canes are tied to the trellis in early spring, and under most
systems of pruning the growing shoots are tied in the summer. This
work is done by cheap men, women, boys and girls. A great variety of
material is used to make the tie, as raffia, wooltwine, willow, inner
bark of the linden or basswood, green rye straw, corn husks,
carpet-rags and wire. The same materials are not usually employed for
both canes and shoots, since the canes are tied firmly to hold them
steady and the work is done early before there is danger of breaking
swelling buds, while the summer shoots are tied to hold for a shorter
time and more loosely to permit growth in diameter. Tying usually
follows accepted patterns in one region but varies greatly in
different regions. There is a knack to be learned in the use of each
one of the materials named, but with none is it difficult, and an
ingenious person can easily contrive a tie of his own to suit fancy or
conditions.

[Illustration: PLATE X.--Clinton (x2/3).]

CHAPTER VIII

METHODS OF TRAINING GRAPES IN EASTERN AMERICA

The grape-grower takes great liberties with Nature in training his
plants. No other fruit is so completely transformed by the grower's
art from its natural habit of growth. Happily, the grape endures
cutting well, and the pruner may rest assured that he may work his
will in pruning his vines, following to his heart's desire a favorite
method with little fear of seriously injuring his vines. Because of
its acc