120 THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 



ventilation, and should be liberated and allowed to fly half an hour before sunset 

 each day during the term of their confinement. The excessive use of grape-juice 

 often produces inebriety. In the case of bees it produces diarrhea. After grapes 

 have arrived at the stage of overripeness and decay in which it is possible for bees 

 to injure them, and the circumstances are so exceptional as to cause the bees to 

 seek such food, it would be advantageous to the grape grower to secure his grapes 

 from the ravages of decay, and advantageous to the bee-keeper to secure his bees 

 from the ravages of disease. 



PROFITABLE GRAPES. 



A paper by HENRY WALLIS, Wellston, Mo., read at the West Plains meeting of the 

 Missouri Horticultural Society. 



The task assigned to me is greater than I am able to do perfect justice ; there- 

 fore, I kindly ask for a little forbearance; and if only a few members of our 

 society should gain profit from my personal experience expressed herein, my 

 effort will be tenfold rewarded. Well knowing one man's owl is another man's 

 nightingale, and vice versa, so the same grape may be a bonanza for one fruit- 

 grower and a total failure with another, as the final result of a combination of 

 conditions often uncontrollable. It is more or less a difficult problem, to be 

 solved by every fruit-grower for himself, which varieties, if properly cared for, 

 adapted to his soil, and sold fresh from the vineyard or made into wine, will give 

 the best cash reward in near-by or distant markets. 



One thing I know surely : all grapes shipped to a distant market, no matter 

 how poor and miserable they may be, are a source of great profit to the railroad 

 company and the commission man, and only the skimmed, blue milk is left for 

 the fruit-grower, provided it is not spilled entirely by some pig. 



Last year a St. Louis commission firm shipped 450 nine-pound baskets of the 

 finest Hicks grape for me to Milwaukee, Wig. They realized twelve cents per 

 basket in Milwaukee, but gave me only fifteen dollars for the entire lot; equal 

 to me, net, only three cents per basket, or one-third cent for each pound of the 

 finest black grapes. So fully three-fourths of the money received by them was 

 absorbed by the railroad company and the commission man. One of my friends 

 received not one cent for 100 baskets of Concord grapes shipped by the same 

 firm. The same rule applies to the Ohio and New York grape growers. Their 

 grapes were sold last year in St. Louis, at retail, at ten cents per basket; deduct- 

 ing freight, commission, and retailer's profit, I ask : Did the fruit-grower receive 

 one-half cent net for each pound of fine grapes, or even less? (Commentar 

 ueberfluessig!) By the way, I agree with Mr. Bomberger: "There is no earthly 

 excuse for us in Missouri buying our grapes from Ohio or New York," and I add, 

 not even from California. 



Now, what varieties are especially profitable ? Last year even the poor Hart- 

 ford and Ives were profitable for me; each plant had twenty to twenty-five 

 pounds of grapes, and I netted from thirty to thirty-five cents from every twenty- 

 pound basket. My neighbor sold his poor Champion for three to four cents per 

 pound before my Moore's Early could be had. Moore's Early is profitable on ac- 

 count of its quality as well as earliness, even if a poor grower, producing only mod- 

 erate crops. The Worden will be found profitable for the same reason, though it 

 produces more fruit. Norton, Cynthiana, Missouri Reisling and a few others 

 will be profitable for wine, considering their quality. The finest table grapes for 

 many years to come will be the least profitable to the producers, until we are 



