[Illustration: 30. OVERHEAD KNIFFIN, BEFORE PRUNING.] _The Cross-Wire System._--Another high Kniffin training, and which is also confined to the vicinity of Marlboro', New York, is the Cross-Wire, represented in figs. 31 and 32. Small posts are set eight feet apart each way, and a single wire runs from the top of post to post--six and one-half feet from the ground--in each direction, forming a check-row system of overhead wires. The grape-vine is set at the foot of the stake, to which the trunk is tied for support. Four canes are taken from spurs on the head of the trunk, one for each of the radiating wires. These canes are cut to three and one-half or four feet in length, and the bearing shoots droop as they grow. Fig. 31 shows this training as it appears some time after the leaves start in spring. Later in the season the whole vineyard becomes a great arbor, and a person standing at a distance sees an almost impenetrable mass of herbage, as in fig. 32. This system appears to have little merit, and will always remain local in application. It possesses the advantage of economy in construction of the trellis, for very slender posts are used, even at the ends of the rows. The end posts are either braced by a pole or anchored by a wire taken from the top and secured to a stake or stone eight or ten feet beyond, outside the vineyard. [Illustration: 31. CROSS-WIRE TRAINING.] [Illustration: 32. CROSS-WIRE TRAINING. OUTSIDE VIEW.] _Renewal Kniffin._--It is an easy matter to adapt the Kniffin principle of free hanging shoots to a true renewal method of pruning. There are a few modifications in use in which the wood is annually renewed to near the ground. The trellises comprise either two or three wires, and are made in the same manner as for the upright systems, as the High Renewal. At the annual pruning only one cane is left. This comprises twelve or fifteen buds, and is tied up diagonally across the trellis, the point or end of the cane usually being bent downward somewhat, in order to check the strong growth from the uppermost parts. The shoots hang from this cane, and they may be pinched back when they reach the ground. In the meantime a strong shoot is taken out from the opposite side of the head--which usually stands a foot or less from the ground--to make the bearing wood of the next year; and this new cane will be tied in an opposite direction on the trellis from the present bearing cane, and the next renewal shoot will be taken from the other side of the head, or the side from which the present bearing wood sprung; so that the bearing top of the vine is alternated in either direction upon the trellis. This system, and similar ones, allow of laying down the vines easily in winter, and insure excellent fruit because the amount of bearing wood is small; but the crop is not large enough to satisfy most demands.