In this manner a vine can be made, in course of time, to cover a large space, and get very old. The great vine at Windsor Palace was planted more than sixty years ago, and in 1850 it produced two thousand large bunches of magnificent grapes. The space covered by the branches was one hundred and thirty-eight feet long, and sixteen feet wide, and it had a stem two feet nine inches in circumference. This is one of the largest vines on record. They should, however, be strongly manured to come to full perfection.
Other authorities prefer the Thomery system of training, but I think it much more complicated and difficult to follow. Those wishing to follow it will find full directions in DR. GRANT'S and FULLER'S books, which are very explicit on this method.
There are many other systems in vogue among vine-dressers in Germany and France, but as our native grapes are so much stronger in growth, and are in this climate so much more subject to mildew and rot, I think these methods, upon the whole, but poorly adapted to the wants of our native grapes, however judicious they may be there. I will only mention a few of them here; one because it is to a great extent followed in Mexico and California, and seems to suit that dry climate and arid soil very well; and the other, because it will often serve as a pretty border to beds in gardens. The first is the so-called buck or stool method of training. The vine is made to form its head--_i.e._, the part from which the branches start--about a foot above the ground, and all the young shoots are allowed to grow, but summer-pruned or checked just beyond the last bunch of grapes. The next spring all of the young shoots are cut back to two eyes, and this system of "spurring in" is kept up, and the vine will in time present the appearance of a bush or miniature tree, producing all its fruit within a foot from the head, and without further support than its own stem. Very old vines trained in this manner often have twenty to twenty-five spurs, and present, with their fruit all hanging in masses around the main trunk, a pleasing but rather odd aspect. This method could not be applied here with any chance of success only to those varieties which are slow growers, and at the same time very hardy. The Delaware would perhaps be the most suitable of all varieties I know for a trial of this method; such strong growers as the Concord and Norton's Virginia could never be kept within the proper bounds, and it would be useless to try it on them. It might be of advantage on poor soil, where there is at the same time a scarcity of timber. Figure 17 shows an old vine pruned after this method.