1892 



(JMOANINCIS IN KKKCULTUUE. 



cm 



Notes of Travel 



FROM A. I. ROOT. 



OKAl*K-(iR<>WlN«J IN CAMFORNIA. 



Tho pii'tuiv I siibiuit is one that I pnrchasod 

 of a photofiraplicr in Riv(>rsid«>, and I do not 

 even l\no\v wIk ri> llir srcni' comes frcjni. Very 

 liiu'ly it was one sptH-ialiy sclct'tcd. There is 

 no question, liowever. hut that it is real tnitli 

 and real life: and I feel sure that all the fruit 

 wliioh you see seattered about actually grew on 

 those very ■■ bushes:" for in California. grapi'S 

 grow on hnshi'S rather than on vines. It makes 

 one think of the old tH)Uplet: 



Where the gold, it hanps on bushes, 

 .\iui the fish swim on dry land. 



The lifelike action, movements, and faces of 

 the workmen would of itsi>)f. if nothing else, 

 make one believe the picture is real. Then the 

 trays that they spi'ead the fruit on are no fancy 

 got-up alTairs: in fact, tiiat one in the fonv 

 ground is so rickety that, if the workman does 

 not handle it carefully, it will be likely to come 

 to pieces. The severe h(>at and intense dryness 

 of the atmosphere have much to do with the 

 splitting and breaking of the wood. And, l)y 

 the way. one wonders how it is possible, witli- 

 out irrigation or water, for a single vine to 

 bear sucli quantities of a fruit ihat is mostly 

 wat'-r itself. I told you ihat gi-apes in Cali- 

 fornia grow on bushes instead of on vines. 

 With tlie thousands of acres — yes, sometimes 

 miiny hundrids of acres in one vineyard — pi'o- 

 viding trellises where lumber is so expensive 

 would be entirely out of the question, and so all 

 the grapevines, both for wine and grape-grow- 

 ing, are trained to stand alone. In fact, many 

 of the vines look like tlie stump of a small tree. 

 Gr at numliers of shoots come out of this slump 

 in the spring: and after bearing their fruit 

 they are cut back within two or three buds of 

 the top of the stump: and this laborious 

 trimming is the most expensive part of grape 

 growing. While at friend Morris', in San 

 Jacinto. I saw a man with appropriate shears 

 trimming tlie vines. Well, there was such a 

 profusion of shoots, and such a brush- heap 

 of — not foliage, because the leaves were all off 

 in January— that it looked to me as if it would 

 be a good halfhuur's work to trim even a sin- 

 gle vine. JJut there is no help for it. It has 

 to be done if, yon want good fruit. I do not 

 knosv what would .become of one of these big 

 vines if it were not trimmed. Yes, I do too; 

 for at an old mission we had a view of a single 

 grapevine that covered a trellis big enough to 

 make a good-sized dooryard. Well, if gfape- 

 vini'S bear fruit every st^ason. as you see them 

 bearing in the picture, what a splendid business 

 it would be to glow these big white California 

 grapes, that sell for from ."> to 10 cents per lb. I 

 Well, there are a good many"ifs"in grape- 

 growing as well as in fruit-growing, there and 

 elsewhere. Where one has tons upon tons of 

 grapes, he does not get any thing like the price 

 they sell for by the single pound at the fruit- 

 stands. It costs money to get them to market, 

 and it costs money to get them before the peo- 

 ple. While great fortunes are, of course, many 

 times made in grape-growing, there are, on the 

 other iiand. many grape growers who do not 

 make thfdr expenses, and the vines are fre- 

 quently grubbed up to give place to orange or 

 lemon irees or something else, because " grape- 

 growing don't pay." I suspect, however, the 

 trouble is. usually, because the proprietor does 

 not rmike it pay. These things rarely if ever 

 pay anywhere unless the proprietor puts his 

 brains light into it and iimheH it pay. 



I hinted that gra|)e-Kro\ving could be carried 

 on without irrigation. This is certainly triift 

 in some locaIitie><— that is, aftnr the vines get 

 started. It must be. I think, that the i-o(jts go 

 down so deep that iliey lind tin- necessary 

 amount of \\ aler to perfect the fruit. 



There is another pleasant tiling about grape- 

 growing, especially where they grow the kind 

 of grajies t hatinake raisins. You do not have 

 to peddle them out quick, as we do strawberries 

 and most kinds of fruit here in Ohio. Just put 

 them on liie>c trays, spreafi them out in the 

 sun. and lei them dry into raisins, In fact, they 

 will dry into vi'iy fair raisins, hanging right 

 on the bushes: hut I believi' this is not consid- 

 ered a suitable way of making good, raisins. 

 With so much foliage in the way. the fruit is 

 usually iilcked and carried away to a piece of 

 grouitd where they can have iiiiobstrucled sun- 

 shine: anil sometimes they hunt up a locality 

 where there are no dews, for there are i)laces in 

 California, as I have told you. where fogs and 

 dews are both almost if not quite unknown. 



Now. very likely I have "put my foot in it" 

 a good many times in my descri|)lion above. If 

 so, vvill some good California friend have pity 

 on me. and give us a brief article descriptive of 

 this fine picture — straightening me out. of 

 cour-e. where I have gone astray? And I will 

 say. in conclusion, that, with all the discourage- 

 ments to the grape, industry. I tell you a man 

 ought to feel happy who owns a vineyard con- 

 taining such a crop as the one in the picture. 



OURSELVES AND OUR NEIGHBORS. 



If liny of you lack wisdom, let him ai-li of God.— James 1 : 5. 

 He irivetii power to the faint; and to them that liave no 

 might heincreaseth strergth.— Isaiah 40: 29. 



It would seem, from the above text, tliat the 

 Cliiistian should be a wiser man than the un- 

 believer. Well. I am of the opinion that he 

 should be a wiser man. The trouble is. there is 

 too little faith and too little comniori-scniie 

 Christianity. If you apply it to natioux rather 

 than to individuals, I suppose the world g. ner- 

 ally will assent. Christian nations have more 

 wisdom than savage ones, or a nation that dis- 

 putes the existence of God — if there is any such 

 nation in the whole wide world. The trouble 

 about applying such a test to individuals is, 

 that individuals are of such great variety we 

 need an assembly of individuals or a committee 

 to embody real common-sense wisdom. I will 

 tell you why I use the term "common-sense 

 wisdom." Not many hours ago it was repeated 

 in my hearing that some of my " neighbors " 

 (now, don't be in haste to feel hurt, any of you, 

 for I have a great many neighbors here and 

 there) had made the remark, " You must not 

 set your hens on Friday. I once knew a woman 

 who set a hen on Friday, and she put fourteen 

 eggs in the nest, and not an egg hatched. You 

 see. in the first place Friday is an unlucky day, 

 and fourteen is an unlucky number. When she 

 had got these two together, she did not get even 

 a chicken.''' Now. I do not know that those 

 were the exact words, but somebody in our 

 neighborhood did repeat something pretty 

 nearly like the above. It might have been in 

 pleasantry, and may be nobody among my 

 neighbors has any faith in such silly nonsense. 

 Hut we can not get rid of the whole matter of 

 superstition quite so easily as that: for I think 

 yon know, my friends, as well as / know, that 

 there are a good many people in this world who 

 repeat such stuff' and hand it down to the com- 

 ing generation, with an honest belief that it is 

 jriftclom. Now, if all the wisdom there is in the 

 world were of this class, I honestly think the 



