  An account of the leading forms now in use of Training the American Grapes. By L. H. BAILEY New York: By the same Author. Annals of Horticulture in North America for the year 1889. A witness of passing events and a record of progress. 249 pages, 52 illustrations. Annals for 1890. 312 pages, 82 illustrations. Annals for 1891. 416 pages, 77 illustrations. Annals for 1892. *** A new volume is issued each year, each complete in itself. Cloth, $1; paper, 60 cents. The Horticulturist's Rule-Book. A compendium of useful information for fruit-growers, truck-gardeners, florists and others. Second edition, revised to the opening of 1892. 221 pages. Cloth, $1; paper, 50 cents. The Nursery Book. A complete guide to the multiplication and pollination of plants. 304 pages, 106 illustrations. Cloth, $1; paper, 50c. Cross-Breeding and Hybridizing. With a brief bibliography of the subject. 44 pages. Paper, 40 cents. (Rural Library Series.) Field Notes on Apple Culture. 90 pages, 19 illustrations. Cloth, 75 cents. Talks Afield: About plants and the science of plants. 173 pages, 100 illustrations. Cloth, $1.
CONTENTS.
ILLUSTRATIONS. PREFACE. THIS LITTLE book has grown out of an attempt to teach the principles and methods of grape training to college students. I have found such teaching to be exceedingly difficult and unsatisfactory. It is impossible to firmly impress the lessons by mere lectures. The student must apprehend the principles slowly and by his own effort. He must have time to thoroughly assimilate them before he attempts to apply them. I therefore cast about for books which I could put before my class, but I at once found that there are very few succinct accounts of the subjects of grape pruning and training, and that none of our books portray the methods which are most largely practised in the large grape regions of the east. My only recourse, therefore, was to put my own notes into shape for print, and this I have now done. And inasmuch as all grape-growers are students, I hope that the simple account will find a use beyond the classroom. This lack of adequate accounts of grape training at first astonished me, but is not strange after all. It must be remembered that the cultivation of the native grape is of very recent origin. There are many men who can remember its beginning in a commercial way. It seldom occurs to the younger generation, which is familiar with the great vineyards in many states, that the Concord is yet scarcely forty years old, and that all grape growing in eastern America is yet in an experimental stage. Progress has been so rapid in recent years that the new methods outstrip the books. The old horizontal arm spur system, which is still the chief method in the books, has evolved itself into a high renewal training, which is widely used but which has not found its way into the manuals. The Kniffin type has outgrown its long period of incubation, and is now taking an assured place in vineyard management. So two great types, opposed in method, are now contending for supremacy, and they will probably form the basis of all future developments. This evolution of American grape training is one of the most unique and signal developments of our modern horticulture, and its very recent departure from the early doubts and trials is a fresh illustration of the youth and virility of all horticultural pursuits in North America. 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.
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