In deciding what system of pruning to adopt, all these factors, together with the nature of the vine and the uses to which the fruit is to be put, must be considered. It is best when the vineyard is started to err on the side of short pruning. While this may diminish slightly the first one or two crops, the vines will gain in vigor and the loss will be made up in subsequent crops. If the style of pruning adopted results in excessive vigor of the vines, it should be gradually changed in the direction of longer pruning with the object of utilizing this vigor in the production of crop. This change should be gradual, or the risk is run of injuring the vitality of the vines by one or two excessively heavy crops. Finally, each year the condition of the individual vine should determine the kind of pruning to be adopted. If the vine appears weak, from whatever cause, it should be pruned shorter or given less spurs or fruit canes than the year before. On the contrary, if it appears unnecessarily vigorous, more or longer spurs or fruit canes should be left. Every vine should be judged by itself. It is not possible to give more than general directions for the pruning of the whole vineyard. It cannot be well pruned unless the men who do the actual pruning are capable of using sufficient judgment to properly modify their methods for each individual vine. [Illustration: PLATE XIV.--Eaton (x4/5).] CHAPTER X EUROPEAN GRAPES IN EASTERN AMERICA As we have seen, there were many efforts to grow European grapes in America during the first two centuries in the settlement of the country. The various attempts, some involving individuals, others corporations and in early days even colonies, form about the most instructive and dramatic episodes in the history of American agriculture. All endeavors, it will be remembered, were failures, so dismally and pathetically complete that we are wont to think of the two hundred years from the first settlements in America to the introduction of the Isabella, a native grape, as time wasted in futile culture of a foreign fruit. The early efforts were far from wasted, however, for out of the tribulations of two centuries of grape-growing came the domestication of our native grapes, one of the most remarkable achievements of agriculture. The advent of Isabella and Catawba wholly turned the thoughts of vineyardists from Old World to New World grapes. So completely, indeed, were viticulturists won by the thousand and more native grapes, that for the century which followed no one has planted Old World grapes east of the Rockies, while vineyards of native species may be found North and South from the Atlantic to the Pacific.