Gra^e Culture and Wine Making in California. loi 



anthracite ; and that it often passes off unburned, in most ordinary 

 furnaces, is proved by the fact, that when we open the fire door, we are 

 often greeted with a sudden flash of gas, which takes fire the moment 

 it gets air enough to burn it : whenever this happens, we shall find our 

 account in boring a few small holes through the fire door to admit air 

 enough above the fire to burn th? gas. The loss suffered from the 

 neglect of this simple precaution is estimated, by good authorities, at 

 from one quarter to one half of the whole coal burned. 



There is another objection to copper boilers besides the one mentioned 

 by Mr. Strong, viz. : that the copper burns out rapidly in contact with a 

 coal fire, as is experienced by every housekeeper who uses a copper 

 wash kettle over a coal stove. 



The statement that hot-beds " will in the future be more and more 

 strictly confined to small eflbrts and special purposes," would, perhaps, 

 provoke a smile from the great market gardeners of Arlington, who are 

 still, many of the best of them, very confident that the hot-bed is the 

 cheapest and best means likely to be invented for forcing vegetables. 

 Their opinion may be due in great measure to the proverbial attachment 

 of farmers to old and time-honored ways of doing things ; still there are 

 young, enterprising, wide-awake fellows, who have been brought up at 

 gardening, and who have used both green-houses and hot-beds, who 

 think that for all winter work the green-house is best, but for the spring 

 months, the hot-bed will always be used, and found most economical, at 

 least, for the forcing of vegetables. 



GRAPE CULTURE AND WINE MAKING IN CALIFORNIA. 



By M. M. Estee, San Francisco. 



I WAS surprised to see in the February number of the Journal, under 

 the subject of " California Grapes and Wine," the statement that 

 " grape culture is only profitable to those who can make their crop 

 into wine, and this requires a capital of at least thirty thousand 

 dollars^ 



On this subject, permit me to say you have been entirely misinformed. 

 First, in California, thus far, those who have raised table grapes only, 

 have made quite as much money as those who have made wine. Second, 

 all small producers can sell their wine grapes at from one to one and a 

 quarter cents per pound, taken at their vineyards, the large manu- 



