MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 385 



Fall Planted Grapevines. 



For several years past we have practiced planting grape vines in 

 the fall, as well as in the spring. We order our vines from the nur- 

 sery about the middle of October and plant them the first part of No- 

 vember, we let them stand until the first week in December without 

 any protection, then we take a small hand-sickle and a fork and mulch 

 them. We cut small weeds, grass or anything convenient, and scatter 

 a forkful or two over each vine, and at the same time put a little dirt 

 or a clod or two on the edge of the mulching to the north side. 



In this way the tender roots are protected from the severe cold of 

 the midwinter, and put in prime fix to shoot out and start the buds 

 early in the spring. 



A grape vine planted in this way will start earlier and make much 

 more growth than one planted the following spring. There are warm 

 spells in February and early March, when the roots of the fall-planted 

 vine will grow long before spring planting has begun. Hence, if the 

 late spring should be dry and unfavorable to growth, the fall vine will 

 have had a start that insures its living, while the spring-planted vine 

 will be dwarfed in growth, if not killed outright. 



BEES AND RIPE GRAPES. 



We are satisfied from experience and observation that the idea 

 which some people have, that bees injure ripe grapes, is utterly un- 

 founded. On our farm we have both a vineyard and an apiary, and we 

 can confidently assert that our bees have never injured our grapes in 

 the least. We believe that a bee cannot puncture a grape skin. The 

 proboscis, or what we might call the honey sucker of the bee, is soft 

 and flexible, and not intended by nature to puncture anything, but 

 simply to enable the bee to reach the nectar in the blossoms. The idea 

 that the bee might bite the skin of the grape and then insert its honey 

 sucker is absurd. Bees have no instinct to caase them to approach 

 their honey source in that way. They do not bite in self-defense. Their 

 stinger is their weapon of warfare, or assault. Neither would they 

 sting the grape and then take the honey from the fracture so made, for 

 bees sting only as a last resort, as in most cases to sting means death 

 to the bee, and the honey gatherer is not out on the warpath, but on 

 the peaceful mission of gathering sweets while they are to be had. 



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