Chapter VIII 



The Grapevine for Home Adornment, Shade, 



Fruit and Health 



This short chapter is intended to answer many questions about grapes and grape culture, 

 especially for the yard and garden planting, for beautifying the home and supplying its table 

 with the handsomest and richest fruit that grows. Grapes, among the most profitable, whole- 

 some and nutritious of fruits, deserve more general and extensive planting. 



By chemical analysis good ripe grapes have been found to supply a greater per cent of sugar 

 and muscle-making material per pound than any other fruit we grow. The sprightly, nicely 

 proportioned acids, and aromatic flavors have a cooling, exhilarating, laxative effect, possessed 

 by no other fruit. No other fruit so surely yields, for a long series of years, abundant annual 

 crops. No other can be so successfully grown in such a variety of situations at so little expense. 



As a trailer about the kitchen porch, spread over the rear walls of the house, or barn, or 

 stable, along the garden fence, or over the arbor to outhouses, or on the vineyard trellis, it is 

 persistently faithful in yielding its comely aspect and generous loads of black, white, violet, pink 

 and golden clusters in return each year for a few moments given in cultivating, pruning and 

 spraying. It asks only the place where it is planted to be made well drained, w r arm and loamy, 

 and annually a layer of leaf-mold or similar fertilizer spread on the soil around it. 



It is probably one of the first , if not the very first , of fruits used and brought into cultivation by 

 man and it has more faithfully, than others, stood by him in all temperate and warm climates 

 ever since, and yet it is yielding finer and finer improvements for the table, for raisins, for fresh 

 juice and for wine, as the ages run on. 



But our modern big peaches and apples, by their very bigness more than actually superior 

 merits, in many sections have overshadowed the grape. Besides, few persons in the country east 

 of the Rockies have learned the few simple facts necessary to successful grape growing, and are 

 actually scared off by the mention of trellis and pruning and spraying, while they will essay the 

 planting of big peach orchards that require even greater expense and care to get paying results. 



By using the different classes of varieties of grapes for the different latitudes, soils and pur- 

 poses, there is scarcely a farm between the Great Lakes and the Gulf but can successfully grow 

 grapes. Of only one or two other fruits, the strawberry and blackberry can as much be said. 

 And this means the development of three great industries, namely fresh grapes for market and 

 table from June 1 in Southwest Texas, to November in the North; wine for home table and 

 market the year through, and raisins for culinary and table use all the year long, but more espe- 

 cially in the mince-pie season. 



The first thing for anyone to do, who thinks of planting a grapevine or more, is to find the 

 positions about the home where vines can be grown to advantage. Having located the spots, 

 these should be prepared in the best manner by clearing away grass, weeds or undesirable shrubs 

 or trees, and working up a wide deep bed of soil, remembering that the ground can never be 

 worked deeply after the vine is once established. Seepy ground that cannot be well underdrained 

 by tile, or trench filled with stones, should not be used. Work into the soil, if thin and poor, 

 plenty of leaf mold, ground bone or manure from the cow-yard. Secure vigorous, healthy, one or 

 two year old plants from some reliable source, of the varieties best suited to your purpose; cut 

 the top back to 3 or 4 good buds and the roots to 8 or 10 inches. In the prepared bed in which 

 to be planted, open a hole deep enough to let the plant down as deep as it grew in nursery, making 



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