No. 10. 



Johnny Appleseed. 



317 



tive grapes — there are many — of which we 

 liave now proved the Isabella and Catawba 

 to be excellent. Plant vines deep, on dry 

 soil, where there are no springs of water — on 

 slaty, calcareous, or other soils — but tlie drier 

 tliey are, the better for the grape. A soil of 

 brick clay will not do. Tlie roots must be 

 deep to avoid our severe droughts. Plough 

 the ground exceedingly deep before you 

 plant your vineyard. I have found that in 

 seven years' culture, the savage much of 

 my Isabella has vanished. Its character is 

 greatly changed for the better. Its pulp is 

 almost gone ; its seeds are less. 



The culture of the vine has one great 

 and eminent advantage over all other crops. 

 If you plant it well, you will get an increas- 

 ing crop for twenty-five years; and every 

 year (with rare exceptions) for fifty and even 

 seventy-five years, a good crop. Vines will 

 sometimes live a hundred years ! — and on 

 our native vines you can have double the 

 quantity which is obtained from a vine in 

 Europe, where the vine has from ages of 

 short pruning, become feeble, and attained 

 its perfection. We do not let the vines bear 

 one half as many grapes as they would if 

 all were left on. Thin them out well. You 

 will have better and richer fruit. 



In pruning, I do not spur them ! I cut 

 away the old, and bring the new vine to 

 bear. Nineteen out of twenty persons spur- 

 prune their vines in this city — leaving two 

 eyes on. 



I keep my vines within about six feet in 

 height for convenience in gathering the 

 clusters. All kinds of animal substances 

 are good for manure for vines. Street ma- 

 nure is excellent for them. They ought not, 

 however, to be stimulated too highly, for 

 then they become profuse in foliage, and the 

 fruit mildews and rots. An even regular 

 growth ought to be kept up. Rotten eods 

 mixed with barn-yard manure is good for 

 vines. Blood is good. Long Island might 

 by means of the fish called Manhaden be 

 made one beautiful vineyard ! Take the fish 

 in June, make a hole near the root with a 

 crowbar, push down a fish — there will be no 

 smell from it, and it is an admirable manure 

 for grape. 



Composts of sea weed, black earth and 

 cow and horse dung are good. 



Ashes are excellent on sandy lands where 

 their phosphates are leached off by rains. 



Prune in March ! they bleed, and my 

 bleeding vines ^present a magnificent specta- 

 cle in the rays of tlie sun. Slight bleeding 

 does not hurt them a bit ! The buds start 

 the better for it. The Germans say, " if the 

 juice runs out of the ends of the vines, we 

 know we shall have a good crop !" In France 



and Italy however, they do not prune so as 

 to bleed tlicir vines. 



Johnny Appleseed. 



About the time of the survey of the lands 

 in the United States military district, north- 

 west of the river Ohio, preparatory to tlieir 

 location by those holding the warrants wliich 

 had been issued by the government to the sol- 

 diers of the revolutionary war, for services 

 during that war, tb«rc came to the valley of 

 the Muskingum, and its tributaries, the Tus- 

 carawas, Walhouding, Mohican, &c., a man, 

 whose real name, if ever known, is not now 

 remembered by the oldest inhabitants here, 

 but who was commonly known and called 

 all over the country by the name of Johnny 

 Appleseed. 



This man had imbibed so remarkable a 

 passion for the rearing and cultivation of 

 apple trees from the seed, and pursued it 

 with so much zeal and perseverance, as to 

 cause him to be regarded by the few settlers, 

 just then beginning to make their appear- 

 ance in the country, with a degree of almost 

 superstitious admiration. 



Immediately upon his advent he com- 

 menced the raising of apple trees from the 

 seed, at a time when there were not perhaps 

 fifty white men within the forty miles square. 

 He would clear a few rods of ground in some 

 open part of the forest, girdle the trees 

 standing upon it, surround it with a brush 

 fence, and plant his apple seed. This done, 

 he would go off" some twenty miles or so, 

 select another favorable spot, and again go 

 through the same operation. In this way, 

 without family and without connextion, he 

 rambled from place to place, and employed 

 his time, I may say his life. 



When the settlers began to flock in, and 

 open their " clearings," old Appleseed was 

 ready for them with his young trees ; and it 

 was not his fault if every one of them had 

 not an orchard planted out and growing 

 without delay. 



Thus he proceeded for many years, deriv- 

 ing a self-satisfaction amounting to delight, 

 from the indulgence of his engrossing pas- 

 sion. 



Such were the labors and such the life of 

 Johnny Appleseed among us, and such his 

 unmingled enjoyments, till about fifteen 

 years ago, when, probably feeling the en- 

 croachments of others upon his sphere, and 

 desiring a new and more extended field of 

 operations, he removed to the far West, there 

 to enact over again the same career of hum- 

 ble but sublime usefulness. 



This man, obscure and illiterate though he 

 was, was yet, in some respects, another Dr. 

 Van Mons, and must have been endued with 



