The pruning of the grape vine, therefore, is essentially a thinning process. In the winter pruning, all the canes of the last season's growth are cut away except from two to six, which are left to make the fruit and wood of the next year; and each of these remaining canes is headed back to from three to ten buds. The number and length of the canes which are left after the pruning depend upon the style of training which is practiced. A vine which may completely cover a trellis in the fall, will be cut back so severely that a novice will fear that the plant is ruined. But the operator bears in mind the fact that the grape, unlike the apple, pear and peach, does not bear distinct fruit-buds in the fall, but buds which produce both fruit and wood the following season. [Illustration: 3. DIAGRAM.] Let us now suppose, therefore, that we have pruned our vine in the fall of 1891 to two canes, each bearing ten buds. We will call these canes A and B, respectively. (Fig. 3.) In 1892, therefore, twenty shoots grow from them, and each of these shoots or new canes branches, or produces laterals. We will call these new canes of 1892, A 1, A 2, A 3, B 1, B 2, and so on. Each of the new canes bears at the base about two clusters of grapes, giving a total yield of about forty clusters. These clusters stand opposite the leaves, as seen in fig. 1. In the axil of each leaf a bud is formed which will produce a cane, and perhaps fruit, in 1893. If each of these new canes, A 1, A 2, etc., produce ten buds--which is a moderate number--the vine would go into the winter of 1892-3 with 200 buds for the next year's growth and crop; but these buds should be reduced to about twenty, as they were in the fall of 1891. That is, every year we go back again to the same number of buds, and the top of the vine gets no larger from year to year. We must, therefore, cut back again to two canes. We cut back each of the original canes, A and B, to one new cane. That is, we leave only A 1 and B 1, cutting off A 2, A 3, etc., and B 2, B 3, etc. This brings the vine back to very nearly its condition in the fall of 1891; but the new canes, A 1 and B 1, which are now to become the main canes by being bent down horizontally, were borne at some distance--say three or four inches--from the base of the original canes, A and B, so that the permanent part of the vine is constantly lengthening itself. This annually lengthening portion is called a _spur_. Spurs are rarely or never made in this exact position, however, although this diagrammatic sketch illustrates clearly the method of their formation. The common method of spurring is that connected with the horizontal arm system of training, in which the canes A and B are allowed to become permanent arms, and the upright canes, A 1, A 2, B 1, B 2, B 3, etc., are cut back to within two or three buds of the arms each year. The cane A 1, for instance, is cut back in the fall of 1892 to two or three buds, and in 1893 two or three canes will grow