GRAPES 195 



Undesirable varieties that have shown them- 

 selves to be inferior or not adapted to a given 

 locality, may be grafted to any sort the owner 

 may desire. There are various ways of doing 

 this, but the easiest is to dig the earth away 

 from the vine for a distance of several inches 

 below the soil. In this way the main trunk is 

 exposed and it is then cut off two or three 

 inches below the surface. The stub is split 

 and a wedge-shaped scion is inserted much after 

 the fashion employed in cleft grafting the apple. 

 If the stub is an inch or more in diameter it 

 will probably pinch the scion hard enough to 

 hold it in place. If it is of less diameter one 

 should use a bit of twine to bind the stub and 

 thus secure a perfect contact. After the opera- 

 tion the wound should be wrapped with tin-foil 

 or oiled paper and the earth replaced and 

 mounded up slightly around the protruding 

 scion. Such grafts inserted in strong old 

 native vines have been known to make a growth 

 of eighty feet in a single season. Some years 

 ago a number of Italians purchased small 

 farms in my neighborhood and one of the first 

 things they did was to graft the wild grape- 

 vines they found growing in the hills. The 

 sixth year after grafting one such vine one of 

 the men reported gathering a "wagonload" of 

 grapes from it. He did not specify the size of the 

 wagon, but admitted that the grapes made a 



