46 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



March 



Treatment of the American Grape Vine. 

 There is an iuterestiug article bearing the 

 above title in the Journal of Horticulture for 

 for November. The writer Mr. F. Under- 

 hill, of Brocton, New York, aiys : 



"The question of the iiropcr method of 

 planting, training and pruning the native 

 grapevihe of America, is one of especial 

 interest and importance to a large class of our 

 people who have invested their means in 

 vine-yards. lu the text-books of grape- 

 culture, in the Horticultural Journals and in 

 the remarks of grajie-growers at their meet- 

 ings for discussion the subject is disrussed, 

 and the most diverse opinions and views are 

 expressed; and unable to arrive at a definite 

 conclusion as to the merit of the diflerent 

 theories propouuded, the practical grape- 

 grower is compelled to grope blindly in the 

 dark until atedivisaud often costly experi- 

 ence shall suggest to him the proper course 

 to pursue i n't he management of his vine- 

 yard. 



"Before stating the results of personal 

 observation on this subject, let me briefly 

 recur to the early history of vineyard-culture 

 in America. Our first experiments were 

 with the foreign vine, and these signally 

 failed ; and it was only when the Isabella 

 and Catawba were discovered and dissemin- 

 ated, that our people believed we had native 

 grapes of sufficient merit to justify their cul- 

 tivation in vineyards. In many localities 

 there was a desire to try the experiment; but 

 the people had only idueflnite and crude 

 ideas of the manner in which vineyards 

 should be laid out and managed. Hence in- 

 formation was sought of those who had been 

 in the vine districts of Europe, and espec- 

 ially the Germans and French who had 

 taken up their residence in America, and 

 who could state, with more or less intelli- 

 gence particularly the methods pursued in 

 cultivating the vine in Europe. 



" Close planting is a marked peculiarity of 

 the vineyard-culture of Germany, the vines 

 being usually placed three feet asunder in 

 each direction, making nearly five thousand 

 vines per acre. In Northeastern France, the 

 distance is scarcely over a foot, and near- 

 ly forty thousand vines are required to plant 

 an acre. The reason assigned for pur.suing 

 this method is the thinness of the soil, and 

 the consequent necessity of circumscribing 

 the groth of both root and vine ; and in the 

 the Champagne district, the latter is never 

 allowed to attain proportions beyond those 

 of a shrub, tied to a small stake. 



"Having onlj' the methods in vogue in 

 the vine-bearing districts of Northern Eu- 

 rope as examples, our earliest vinyards were 

 generally laid out and managed in conform- 

 ity therewith. Mr Longworth planted his 

 first vineyard of Catawbas only three feet 

 apart in each direction, and, though he sub- 

 sequently increased the distance to four feet, 

 I am informed that he regarded that as the 

 extreme limit of departure which should be 

 made from the European models. At North 

 East Penn., Mr. William Griffith planted a 

 vineyard, with vines four feet by .six. At 

 Westtield, N. Y., a German has a vineyard 

 planted three feet by three. Buchanan, one 

 of the earliest writers, and Mead, one of the 

 ktest writers on grape-culture, recommend 

 four by six feet as the extreme di.stance, and 

 I do not now recollect any text-book which 

 suggests a distance greater tlian six feet in 

 either direction for planting vineyards. 



"But, however closely our vines were 

 planted in early vinyard cultivation, the ex 

 perienced, practical cultivators soon demon- 

 strated that tlie American vine required more 

 room for growth, if the best results were to 

 be attained, and from three feet by three, the 



distance has, from time to tinie, been increas- 

 ed until now eight feet by eight is more 

 ci-inimonly adopted than any other, where 

 the vines are to be trained to wire trellises. 

 •' Bui there was one locality in which 

 vineyard culture was commenced about 

 thirty years ago, and where the planters 

 were far removed from outside counsel. — 

 They were compelled to study tlie nature 

 and the habits of tlic grape-vine, and tlius 

 deduce methods for its treatment. E.xtend- 

 ing southwest from the head of Canandaigna 

 Lake in the Sate of New York, a distance of 

 several miles, is Naples Valley, which to-day 

 has over a thou.sand acres of vineyard on one 

 of its sides. Hills a thousand feet high en- 

 close it ; and there for )nany j'cars the 

 American Neapolitans live secluded from 



the world. 



«■**«»*« 



" Thus it was in the year of grace 1840, 

 when Mr. McKay an intelligent lawyer de- 

 termined to plant a vineyard in that regi<m; 

 he had no one who had ever seen a vineyard 

 to give him counsel and advice. Arbor and 

 garden training on high trellises were the 

 only methods in vogue in grape-culture of 

 which he had anj' knowledge ; and in 

 planting an acre of Isabella vines, he put 

 them in the ground a rod apart in each direc- 

 tion, a system of planting which requires 

 one hundred and sixty vines to the acre. And 

 to make sure that his ground should be rich 

 enough for grapes, he took advantage of the 

 fact of a drove of Kittle dying of some malady, 

 and dug deep pits in the ground he intended 

 for his vineyard, in each of which he placed 

 the carcass of an ox, refuse bones and leather 

 shavings, and over each carcass he planted 

 a vine. He made his trellises seven feet high, 

 and they were completely covered with 

 vines. For a time he gathered good crops, 

 — once as much as six tons from the one 

 hundred and sixty vines planted on that 

 acre of ground. But, as the roots grew rank 

 in a soil of such excessive richness. Nature 

 employed its forces in endeavoring to restore 

 the equilibrium between vine and root; and 

 the result in later years has been a redundan- 

 cy of wood and foliage, and but little fruit. 



" During subsequent years, as the methods 

 pursued in other vineyards became known, 

 the wide planting in the McKay vinyard 

 was the subject of considerable criticism ; 

 and this was not without its eSect upon 

 those who afterwards established vinyards 

 in the valley. And though never tolerating 

 the plan of close planting, yet the Naples 

 people did lessen the distances, in many 

 instances to twelve by twelve. But the ex- 

 ample of high training, however, was fol- 

 lowed ; and the general hight of the trellis 

 is from six feet to six feet and a half With 

 the room thus accorded to the vine to grow, 

 the necessity for summer pruning was 

 scarcly ever "felt ; nor indeed was it introd- 

 ducd until a few years since, when Germans 

 found their way into the valley, and planted 

 vineyards. Biit the contest between the 

 fruiteng qualities between their and their 

 neiglibors' vines, soon caused them to dis- 

 continue, or to greatly modify the extent to 

 which they practiced that sj'stem of 

 pruning." 



— To obtain strawberries in the greates 

 perfection, plant in hills and cut off the 

 runners as soon as they appear. Pull the 

 weeds instead of hoeing them out. If any 

 hoeing is done let it be shallow. Deep cul- 

 ture among strawberry plants will not do. 



TRANSPLANTtNG. — The Horticulturist 

 says : " If it were made a rule, in moving 

 trees, always to reduce the last year's growth 

 to one bud, half the failures in transpantiug 

 would not occur. 





For the Western Pomolofpst. 



Bees and. Improved Bee Hives. 



Raising Queen Bees— \Phal is the Sest Form of 

 Hive — Comb Building—How to secure the great- 

 est amount o/ Surplus Honey, &c. 



Before the invention of movable-comb 

 hives, it was pretty generallj' regarded that 

 success in bee-keeping was a matter of chance 

 — that he who kept bees was lucky or other- 

 wise, just as it might happen — unless, indeed, 

 he sold his luck, or lost it hy giving away a 

 hive of bees. But since the advantages of 

 movable-comb hives have been brought 

 before the public, [in this country mainly by 

 the efforts of Mr. Langstroth,] great pro- 

 gress has been made. And although no in- 

 telligent and well informed apiarian would 

 now use hives without movable-comb frames, 

 yet the most advanced of bee-keepers are 

 far from being masters of their business in 

 all respects ; and as a class we are still in the 

 infancy of the pursuit, and have but just 

 begun to see things as they are, or ought to 

 be. 



Queen rearing has within a few years, 

 since the first importation of the Italian bee 

 into this country, grown to be a pretty large 

 business, and many are devoting all their 

 time to it. And yet there are comparatively 

 few of the bee-keepers of the country who 

 know that the queen breeder can secure the 

 fertilization of his queens by drones of his 

 own selection ; and fewer still, that such 

 process may be conducted by the confine- 

 ment of the queen in full view of the oper- 

 ator. These processes are yet but partially 

 unfolded, or rather they are the germs of 

 what may be, and much uncertainty attaches 

 to them, although they indicate a good deal 

 of progress and give hope for more. 



As to hives, without some form of movable- 

 comb frames, the bee-keeper has, we may 

 say, no control of his bees ; and with their 

 use, complete control. , But the forms of 

 movable-comb hives are so numerous, and 

 there are so many ends to be secured by the 

 use of them, that the bee man is often con- 

 fused in his endeavors to decide what form 

 to use. It is an undisputed fact, I believe, 

 that all the hives in the apiary should be of 

 the same style, and the frames of uniform 

 size, so that a frame from any one hive may 

 be used in any other. And I believe the 

 same ought to be the case in the business of 

 queen-rearing, although many breeders use 

 small or nucleus hives with frames about a 

 fourth as large as those in full size hives. — 

 Let us now enumerate some of the objects to 

 be gained by the form of hive, and so better 

 understand what shape we need. 



Lifting out combs, destroying worms, 

 dividing [artificial swarmingj, extracting 



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