THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 17 



These often grew in the midst of a flower border and were trained with long 

 arms, often reaching above the windows of the second floor; many of the houses 

 having basements with a front and back sunken and paved area; the vines were 

 planted beyond the cap-stones of the back area about ten or twelve feet from the 

 house ; an arbor or slatted trellis carried them straight upward for seven or eight 

 feet then at an angle like a house roof to a point twenty feet above the ground, 

 ending above the windows of the second floor. A long arm was trained to each 

 rafter and each arm had spurs, trimmed to two buds, at regular intervals, and 

 each bud brought two to four bunches of grapes, and the whole was a thing of 

 beauty, shade, and perfume, the hum of insects, and occasional twitter of a 

 wren or other bird, and laden with unnumbered bunches of elegant Isabellas. 

 Others have arched or rectangular arbors or summer-houses, shady with grape 

 leaves, a cool place of rest for the elders and an ideal play-house for the 

 children. Every farmhouse could be beautiful and its interior made more com- 

 fortable if grape-vines were planted to clamber on trellis of wire or slats or strings 

 at the porch or stoop, or a foot or two away from the broad side of the house, or 

 on chicken-wire trellis before the sunny windows. Grape-vine shade is of the 

 coolest, as you will find out if you feel under the leaves even on a hot afternoon. 

 Grape-vines are the cheapest of all plants excepting volunteers, as you can get 

 grape wood free when any neighbor is trimming his vines, and you will find in- 

 structions for rooting them in this book. 



By all means shade the front door, shade the back door, shade the south and 

 west windows of your prairie home, the milk-house, the cave cellar, the cow 

 shed, with grape vines. Put out trees, but the vines will make a cooling shade 

 the second year, while your trees are yet thin of leaf and branch. Any rough 

 poles, chicken wire, barbed wire, smooth wire or even strings will assist and lead 

 the vines to the desired place and form. If you have an out cellar or cave, grape- 

 vines planted on either side and trained to clamber over the roof will change the 

 inner temperature in hot weather several degrees, and in all these cases the use- 

 ful, cooling shade will be succeeded by luscious, healthful fruit. For the above 

 uses, free-growing varieties like Norton's Virginia, Clinton, etc., could be used to 

 advantage, although any ordinary kind will do. 



BAGGING GRAPES. 



The following correspondents have bagged grapes, and all but two or three 

 recommend it, some very highly : 



Adams, D. M., Rome, Sumner county. 



Allison, T. W., Florence, Marion county. 



Barnes, J. T., Beloit, Mitchell county. 



Baum, G. M., Washington, Washington county. 



Dickinson, S. S., Lamed, Pawnee county. 



Diehl, E. P., Olathe, Johnson county. 



Griesa, A. C., Lawrence, Douglas county. Does not advise it. 



Moncrief, R. J., Winfield, Cowley county. 



Oberndorf, A., jr., Centralia, Nemaha county. 



Record, O. M., Thayer, Neosho county. 



Sayles, J. H., Norcatur, Decatur county. 



Spohr, G. E., Manhattan, Riley county. 



Stout, Stephen, Axtell, Marshall county Cloth for bees. 



Taylor, C. H., Eskridge, Wabaunsee county. Does not indorse it. 



White, D. D., Enon, Barber county. Uses mosquito net. 



Holsinger & Sons, Rosedale, Wyandotte county. 



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