54G HOUSTON COUNTY, MINNESOTA. 



many of them at exorbitant prices. The Winter of 1872 and 

 1873, wrought wholesale destruction, and I at once commenced 

 anew, raising my own plants from cuttings, and making the 

 Concord and Delaware the base of operations. I have the 

 newer varieties on trial, but do not intend to expend large 

 sums for uncertainties. I have one acre in full bearing, which 

 produced this year seven thousand pounds (three and one-half 

 tons), and I sold them at an average of six and one-half cents 

 per pound. My vineyard is planted upon what I consider the 

 poorest soil there is for any other purpose. The land slopes 

 strongly to the south, and is sheltered from north winds by high 

 grounds or bluffs. My method of planting a vineyard is to 

 plow the ground very deep as early as the Spring will permit, 

 and set two cuttings in a place, about six or eight feet apart, 

 in rows eight feet apart. If both cuttings live, one is taken 

 up the next Spring, and set where both have failed, or else 

 planted in the nursery for future use, or for sale. The first and 

 ■second years a crop of tomatoes or melons is taken off the 

 ground* from between the rows. After the second year the 

 whole'^ground is given up to them and, for cultivation, they 

 receive a rouo^h diofGrinGf over of the fjround with a fork or 

 pronged hoe, in the month of June, and also have a clean hoeing 

 about the first of August. I train mostly to stakes, and prune 

 in November, keeping the bearing wood as near the root as 

 possible. I do bat little Summer pruning or pinching back. 

 At pruning time the vines are cut loose from the stakes, and 

 the stakes are pulled up and laid over them, which, with the 

 prunings, is all the protection I give the hardy varieties. I 

 cover the tender varieties with straw, brush, corn stalks, or 

 earth, as is most convenient. I estimate tlie annual cost of 

 caring for a vineyard by these methods, at sixty dollars per 

 acre. 



RASPBERRIES. 



The raising of these has been very profitable to me. The 

 Black Caps have netted me from one to three hundred dollars 

 per acre. From three to five years is as long as it pays to keep 



