Addresses — How to Raise Grapes. 173 



the one by burying the old parched wood and bringing the vine 

 right around in the old place, and bring it up with four or five buds 

 above ground, and raise a crop the same year. I do not take up 

 the original root. I have twelve vines on one network of roots; 

 they all work together and hang together; this getting strong roots 

 is the main part of raising grapes; it prevents the fruit from fall- 

 ing from the stems. The roots are fourteen inches from the surface 

 of the ground; I never have any difficulty from their sprouting up. 



Mr. Kellogg — After ten years will not these roots be in your 

 way? 



Mr. Hofer — No. After ten years, if you dig down and cut one 

 in two, it would not hurt it one bit. There is so much hanging to- 

 gether .under the ground that you cannot hurt them any; besides, 

 this is the remedy for the dropping off of grapes. Neither the Mus- 

 catine nor the Hartford drop with me. I plant the vines eight feet 

 apart at first, and in two years cover the ground with vines four 

 feet apart; then if I want to extend I can go four feet further 

 every year. Last summer I went to West Union to stop with a 

 friend of mine, and he had four old Concord vines on trellises. 

 Some of them were as thick as my arm, and they did not bear any- 

 thing, and he asked me what to do with them. I showed him how 

 to lay them down, and he laid one down and made seven young 

 vines. He afterwards took the rest of them down and made twenty- 

 five new vines, and he raised more grapes last summer than he 

 ever did in his whole life. A great many are following my plan 

 and are well satisfied. 



The grape does not need much cultivation. I hoe in the spring 

 and then keep the grass down; it can be plowed; all you want is 

 the grass down; grass makes the grapes rot. I do not mulch the 

 ground; I manure in August. You can keep the grass down with 

 long straw as well as with a hoe. Grape raising is a business which 

 ought to be learned and understood by our people, because it is 

 the best fruit we can raise, and it is the best paying business we 

 know of. It is not half as much work as they think it is, if a man 

 understands it; but it is a business, and a man must know how ; you 

 must know how to tie them down. I can make fifteen hundred in 

 a day with pleasure. It is a pleasure to work in a vineyard. I 

 never saw a man that would not like it. If I hoe, I hire somebody; 

 there is not much pleasure in that. 



