792 THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



of that kind of labor is required that used to be talked about a great deal in the books some 

 years ago. We used to be told that we must trench our soil two or three feet deep, if we 

 would grow grapes successfully. I think that idea has been exploded, as far as we are con- 

 cerned. If you go south five hundred or a thousand miles, there it is necessary to trench; 

 there you want to get a more permanent moisture. It is a different kind of business there 

 from what it is north. Here we want to get all the effect of the sunshine that we can; we 

 want to get all the heat and retain it all. Hence, the original preparation should be very 

 shallow, and the after-cultivation should be of the same character. &quot;We want to encourage 

 the formation of roots near the surface all the time, and never to induce them to go deeply, 

 out of the influence of the sunshine. 



The preparation, therefore, should be simply shallow plowing. Perhaps shallow is 

 not sufficiently definite. Some people call three inches shallow, and others call seven inches 

 shallow. I would not plow the ground for grapes more than seven or eight inches; that 

 I call shallow plowing. I think there is another advantage in not going below that. My 

 investigations into the character of the grape have satisfied me that the roots are not, gener 

 ally, more than five or six inches deep. They are spread out in the ground, a perfect network, 

 at about that depth, with only an occasional straggling root growing down deeper. The 

 grape, as I have said, is a plant which loves heat, and it very naturally keeps its roots near 

 the surface, where they get the heat. 



It makes very little difference in what condition the ground is before you begin. There 

 is no coating of manure that can be put upon the soil that equals the sward; I do not know 

 of anything that compares with it. It is not very comfortable to work upon the first year, 

 or until it has rotted, but I would never rot it by raising a crop; that uses up half of it. I 

 would rather the nutriment contained in the sod would go to my grapes that I am planting 

 than to something else beforehand. 



We do not want to feed grape vines largely with ammoniacal manures. They cause an 

 exuberant growth of foliage and wood ; they do not bring us fruit. We want another class 

 of fertilizers. Hence barn-yard manures are not the things to apply to grapes, and we do 

 not want land that is full of anything of the kind. Whatever there is in the land should be 

 rotted, unless it is sward, which does not have the influence that barn-yard manures do in 

 their green state. 



Having prepared the ground by simply mellowing the surface in any way, whether it has 

 been under cultivation or whether it was in sward, we are prepared to grow and plant the 

 vineyard. The first thing is, to select our vines. The best way is to go to a man who 

 knows how to grow vines, and buy them from him. 1 believe in specialties in almost every 

 thing. The man who grows grape vines as his business will grow better vines than a man 

 who does not make that his business, but who grows only a few. It is a very easy matter to 

 grow grape vines; anybody can do it. But the trouble is this: if an amateur plants a lot of 

 cuttings and gets a thousand vines, that he wants to set for fruiting, he will be sure to use a 

 good many that are worthless, and should be thrown away. If he buys them and pays his 

 money for them, he will buy the best, or should buy the best. Therefore, I would recom 

 mend farmers to purchase the vines of some experienced grape-grower, rather than to under 

 take to grow them themselves. Besides that, one year s growth is gained, which is virtually 

 one year s crop of fruit. 



There is some difference in the quality of vines. If I were to buy vines, I would take 

 the very cream of those one-year-old, and pay the price; the two-year-old vines I would not 

 buy if one-year-old ones were to be had, and the three-year-old vines I would not buy at all. 

 My experience in setting out vines and trees has been, that the young trees and young vines 

 always succeed best in the end. If we buy yearlings, we are very sure to get the whole 

 system of roots; if we buy two-year-old vines, we do not get the whole system of roots, 



