THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 109 



acre of corn ? It does not take any more muscle or brainwork. You get $100 

 an acre for grapes, and $7 to $8 an acre for corn. Seeing a Grantville man 

 selling grapes at one cent per pound, I asked him if he could afford it? He 

 answered, "It 's $100 an acre just the same." I do not think it is near the work 

 to grow grapes as it is corn, and you make more profit. 



F. HOLSINGER: All should raise grapes for family use, if not for market. The 

 question has been asked, "How can we keep them from ripening so early?" I 

 put mine in paper sacks [on the vine] last year, and the result was we had grapes 

 a month later than usual. I did not sack them early enough to prevent a little 

 rot from getting on them. 



WILLIAM CUTTER: The Concord may be left on the vines long after most 

 people think they must be marketed. Many vines are stripped [of grapes] before 

 fully ripe; some drop off, but what do stick improve as long as they hang on. 

 My Catawbas hang on the vines very late. The only loss from letting them hang 

 long is by grasshoppers and bees. 



JAMES McNicoL, Marion county : I raise more Worden than Concord. Cut- 

 ter speaks about picking grapes not fully ripe. If I can get one-half a cent more 

 [per pound] for green grapes, I sell them. The first brought me twenty cents 

 per basket; two or three days afterward I could get only fifteen cents. 



T. W. HARRISON: Moore's Diamond is as delicious a grape as I ever tried. 

 Some do not succeed with it. It does splendidly with me ; ripens very early, and 

 gets into the market before the Concord. Worden is also a fine grape. Mr. 

 Buckman has many varieties. If he will tell about them, we will appreciate it. 



A. H. BUCKMAN, Shawnee county : I have many varieties planted for experi- 

 mental purposes, and not for profit. My two boys think a great deal of them ; 

 getting them interested in grapes helps to keep them on the farm, and thus I 

 succeed better. My returns have been in pleasing my boys. I think they pay 

 me as well as anything on the farm. Moore's Early has paid pretty well, and 

 Moore's Diamond also. I think the Eaton the most successful with me. The 

 Green Mountain, a very sweet, little, white grape, I have no doubt would sell 

 well on the market. It ripens about the 1st of August, and is an awful good 

 bearer. I have Early Ohio which were ripe the 1st day of August. The Green 

 Mountain comes about a week later. Early Ohio is the earliest grape I know, 

 excepting one our friend, Mr. Entsminger, at Silver Lake, has, and calls his 

 "Daisy," which ripens about the 2d of July. The Brighton is a good grape, and 

 always a seller. What I am looking for is a grape a little better than any now 

 grown. My boys say they prefer Moore's Early, Woodruff Red, and Goethe. I 

 have many grapes which I think better than Concord. It pays, and is not a 

 very big job to trim grape-vines. 



GEORGE P. WHITEKER, Shawnee county : The grape crop of 1898 was about 

 one-half what it was in 1897, as near as I can learn. Some vineyards that yielded 

 heavily last year proved almost a complete failure this. The grapes this year 

 rotted and dropped off badly. Many attribute this to the heavy rains last 

 spring ; our limited experience in grape growing does not permit us to express 

 an opinion regarding the matter. In 1894 we planted a vineyard of twenty acres; 

 last year we gathered 14,900 eight-pound baskets, which we sold at an average of 

 ten cents per basket, making a total of $1490; counting off ten per cent, com- 

 mission for selling, cost of basket two and one-half cents, one cent per basket for 

 picking, we have the total cost of marketing, which is $670.50; net on the 14,900 

 baskets, $819.50. This season the same vines yielded only 7178 baskets; less 

 than one- half what they yielded last season. This year we sold our grapes at an 

 average of fourteen and one-half cents per basket, making a total of $1040.81. 



