ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. 517 



Grapes. — Every farmer, every cottager, 

 <very householder or house ruler, should 

 plant a few grape vines. It is a very 

 simple affair, requiring no great amount 

 -of skill nor labor to plant, train and trim 

 ■a. grape vine, and its productiveness of 

 fruits that every body, young or old, can 

 appreciate is proverbial. Who has not 

 heard of the famous grape cure ? Who 

 can object to trying it ? Certainly not 

 he who has planted and trained his own 

 vines. 



Almost any soil that has been deeply 

 loosened and moderately enriched will 

 •cause the grape vine to grow luxuriantly. 

 It may be set in out-of-the-way places, 

 trained to a stake or a trellis, or be made 

 to climb beside the walls of out-houses, 

 and cover their bare sides with foliage 

 and fruit, rendering them ornamental in- 

 stead of ugly. 



Training the young vines in an upright 

 direction to encourage their growth, and 

 at the same time concentrating their force 

 into one or two shoots, by pinching or 

 rubbing out the others, is a very simple 

 affair, and light labor. Pruning them 

 when dormant, cutting them back to two 

 or three eyes in the fall or winter, is no 

 great mystery. The same process of 

 training two strong shoots the next sea- 

 son is but a repetition of the first sum- 

 mer's experience, with more satisfactory 

 results; and the second fall, with canes 

 nearly as large as the little finger, the 

 pruning is less severe, because we now 

 have bearing wood, which needs to be 

 shortened-in two or three feet in a strong 

 vine, These canes are to be trained hor- 

 izontally, as the arms of the vine, in which 

 condition they may be left for years, un- 

 less they need renewal. In the third, 

 and all succeeding years, we must still 

 train the shoots upward, taking care only 

 to remove the superabundance of the 

 growths, by rubbing out, early in the sea- 

 son, and leaving one shoot, say every 

 nine inches, which must be trained up- 

 ward. In the fall of this year, we com- 

 mence pruning these shoots for alternate 

 production of fruit and wood, by cutting 

 one cane about two feet long, and re- 

 ducing the next, the weaker, to a spur, 

 with only two eyes or buds. In this way 

 the bearing wood of the vine is constantly 

 renewed. The mystery disappears when 

 we recollect that all the fruit of a grape 



vine is produced upon green shoots that 

 grow from the cane of last year's growth. 

 By renewing these shoots annually from 

 below, we can have bearing wood to 

 cover the trellis, and strong new shoots to 

 clothe the whole with abundant foliage. 

 Various modifications of pruning and 

 training have been suggested, and may be 

 practiced, but the most simple, common 

 and successful is the one indicated above. 

 All depend upon the annual reproduction 

 of new wood from which to draw our 

 supplies of wood from year to year. 



FEUITS, SMALL, How to Cultivate— 

 We now come to the consideration of 

 the small fruits, which, however, may 

 constitute a very large share of the food, 

 comfort and luxury of a well regulated 

 family, either in the country or city, and 

 which will contribute in no small degree 

 to the healthiness of the people, by sub- 

 stituting their grateful acids and sweets 

 for the calomel, ipecac, tartar, soda and 

 potash, in various forms, that are so freely 

 drawn from the druggists' shelves, either 

 for the cure or production of disease, ac- 

 cording as they are administered by the 

 doctor or by the cooks. 



The strawberry comes first in the order 

 of the season, and, indeed, it is the most 

 universally welcomed and relished of them 

 all. The cultivation of this fruit is so sim- 

 ple, and the returns so speedy and so 

 grateful, that it should occupy a promi- 

 nent place in every farmer's garden. This 

 fruit will grow in almost any soil, but a 

 good stiff loam, well stirred, is probably 

 the best. The strawberry plants should 

 be well rooted runners, or offshoots from 

 an older plantation; they should be taken 

 up carefully, so as to have good roots. If 

 these have been formed in small flower- 

 pots sunk near the parent bed, so much 

 the better, as the fibres, being confined by 

 the pot, will be less disturbed in trans- 

 planting, or the ball may be set entire. 



Strawberries may be grown in hills, in 

 rows, or in beds. The latter is the com- 

 mon method, and the beds are formed by 

 planting two or more rows a foot or fif- 

 teen inches apart, setting the plants twelve 

 inches one from another in the rows. In 

 the beds, the runners are allowed to grow^ 

 and to increase the number of plants in- 

 definitely, so that they are often injured 

 by being crowded too closely together, 

 When planted in hills, they are set eighteen 



