WINTEK MEETING, 1SS0. 37 



MR. BRADFIELD'S OPINION". 



Ada, February 9th, 1880. 



"How can a supply of grapes for a farmer's home be cheaply grown?" 

 This is an important question, and for myself quite a difficult one to answer 

 intelligently without a blackboard. Ignoring quality of fruit, neatness, etc, 

 I shall confine myself to the two points in the question, cheapness and supply. 

 It is amusing to hear persons who can do almost anything else say " I am very 

 fond of grapes, but I don't know how to grow them." As there is sometimes 

 more truth than poetry in this remark, and to show how not to grow grapes, I 

 will state two or three facts. Some fourteen years ago I induced one of those 

 persons to try. He bought half a dozen vines, costing him $5; after the 

 ground was fitted the writer planted them and told him how to treat them, 

 and to keep them as clean as he would a hill of corn. They all started well, 

 and two years after, when my vines planted at the same time were bearing a 

 light first crop of grapes, I visited him and inquired about the vines. He said 

 he guessed they were all right, but had not seen them lately. We went out to 

 where they were planted, and he began kicking away the weeds, which were 

 about two or three feet high. After searching for some time he asked with 

 amazement, " Was it not about here where the vines were planted?" adding, "I 

 told you I didn't know how to grow grapes." Was his failure a want of 

 knowledge, or for not practicing what he knew ? 



Another planted $8 worth where the turkeys and chickens could have access 

 to them. He was told he must keep them away. "Yes, he would," but in 

 the fall there was not a vine left. 



A recent case. — A party planted a lot of cuttings three years ago. Most of 

 them grew, and from occasional letters I inferred he would have a supply of 

 grapes the coming season. Going into the garden while on a visit there this 

 fall, I could see no grape vines; corn, cabbage, potatoes, etc., had been kept 

 clean. Past experience induced me to go to a large bed of weeds from three to 

 four feet high; walking around the outside and peering in, not a vine was to 

 be seen. On asking the lady of the house where the grape vines were, she 

 referred me to the bed of weeds. There are none there, I said. She rather 

 indignantly replied, " I know I saw one or two there before the weeds got so 

 high." How soon will such people have a supply of grapes? The question is, 

 how can it be done? 



Prepare the ground by spreading a good coat of rotten stable manure on the 

 surface, plow deep, and fit it as for corn. Make a trellis by setting posts eight 

 feet apart along the row, and standing about seven feet out of the ground ; 

 use strips two and one-half or three inches wide and sixteen feet long. Nail 

 one to the post twelve to fifteen inches from the ground and another at the 

 top of the post, and the third one an equal distance between. 



If you are a granger, join with your brothers and buy vines by the hundred. If. 

 not, go to the nursery yourself, and buy one or more dozen as you need ; protect 

 their roots from the sun and wind ; plant four feet apart in the rows, with the 

 view of taking out every alternate vine the fourth or fifth year. This will give 

 you twice as many grapes for two or three seasons, or until the vines intended 

 to be eight feet apart, about fill the trellis. Vines are cheap, and if the alter- 

 nate ones are thrown away at that time, they will have more than paid the 

 cost and trouble. I should plant the common hardy kinds, — Concord, Hart- 

 ford, some Delaware, and for a variety a few Marthas. Two or three year old 

 vines will bear soonest. Plant carefully, but not too deep; spread the roots 



