Читать книгу Manual of American Grape-Growing - U. P. Hedrick - Страница 90

Given level land, a well-made marker, a gentle team and a careful driver with a surveyor's eye, and a vineyard may be marked for planting with a sled-marker, a modified corn-marker or even a plow. Some such marker method is commonest in use in laying out vineyard rows, but it is patent to the eye of every passer-by in grape regions that the commonest method is not the best to secure perfect alignment of row and vine. The combination named for good work with any of the marker methods is found too seldom. If the marker method is used, it is put in practice as follows: The rows being marked at the distance decided on, a deep furrow is plowed along the row by going both ways with the plow; this done, small stakes are set in the furrow at the proper distances for the vines, taking care to line them both ways. Planting holes are thus dug in the furrow with the stakes as a center.

Marking by means of a measuring wire or chain is the best method of locating vines accurately in a vineyard. The measuring wire varies according to the wishes of the user from two to three hundred feet or may be even longer. The best wires are made of annealed steel wire about an eighth of an inch in diameter. At each end of the wire is a strong iron ring to be slipped over stakes. The wire is marked throughout its length by patches of solder at the distances desired between rows of vines; to make these places more easily seen, pieces of red cloth are fastened to them. Sometimes this measuring wire is made of several strands of small wire, giving more flexibility and making marking easier, since by separating the strands at the desired points, pieces of cloth may be tied to mark distances.

In using the wire, the side of the vineyard which is to serve as the base of the square is selected and the wire is stretched, leaving at least one rod from road or fence for a headland. With the wire thus stretched, a stake is placed at each of the distance tags to represent the first row of vines. Beginning at the starting point, sixty feet are measured off in the base line and a temporary stake is set; eighty feet at a right angle with the first line are then measured off at the corner stake, judging the angle with the eye; then run diagonally from the eighty-foot stake to the sixty-foot stake. If the distance between the two stakes is one hundred feet, the corner is a right angle. With the base lines thus started at right angles to each other, one can measure off with the measuring wire as large an area as he desires by taking care to have the line each time drawn parallel with the last, and the stakes accurately placed at the marking points on the wire.

Still another method which may be put to good use in laying out a vineyard, especially if the vineyard is small, is to combine measure and sight. The distances about the vineyard are measured and stakes set to mark the ends of the rows around the area. Good stakes can be made from laths pointed at one end and whitewashed at the other. A line of stakes is then set across the field each way through the center, in places, of course, which the two central rows of vines will fill. When these are in place, if the area is not too large or too hilly, all measurements can be dispensed with and the vines can be set by sighting. A man at the end of the row has three laths to sight by in each row and a second man should drive stakes as directed by the sighter. Accurate work can be done by this method, but it requires time, a good eye and much patience in the man who is sighting.