30 
R. M. KELLOGG'S GREAT CROPS ON 
open and the soil very rich and you have them. 
The best variety is the 
Don'iiiii!'', 
which is enormously productive and very free 
from mildew, being a native seedling, and 
forms a large and handsome bush. It is gen- 
■erally accepted as the best in nearly all 
respects. 
Smith's Improved 
is a large, pale yellow, good quality and excess- 
ively productive, requires good, clean culture 
.and mulching. 
Hon^hton. 
Berries, not very large, but an immense num- 
ber of them. It is pale red and adheres to the 
bush so you can choose your time in picking it. 
THE VINE YAK I >. 
Of all the fruit that grows there is none 
more beautiful and tempting than the grape, 
with its great rich clusters hidden away in the 
oool shade of its dense foliage. They are so 
■easy to grow and afford so much pleasure for 
the labor expended that a 
Business Man, Mecliaiiic or Farmer 
should deny his family or the hired help an 
abundance of this lucious fruit comes close to 
the borders of cruelty. 
A few vines and a very little care and the 
enjoyment is yours. 
The (il-eat Point 
is to have cuttings taken from strong and 
vigorous vmes that have always been kept 
properly pruned. We have already stated that 
•cuttings taken from exhausted vines will not 
iruit as heavily as those from canes which have 
never been allowed to overbear. Not more 
"than two or three clusters should be permitted 
to ripen on a three year old vine and eight to 
twelve on a four year old cane. You will 
demonstrate great skill if you succeed m restor- 
ing full vigor to a vine allowed to bear all it 
sets during the first three or four years of its 
life. I do not believe any one ever succeeded 
in performing that teat. 
The Soil 
should be rather dry and neither the stiffest 
•clay nor lightest sand. Good corn and potato 
land will do. It delights in warm sunshine for 
foliage and shade for its fruit. 
Fertiliziiie: 
should consist largely of ground bone and wood 
ashes, or very thoroughly rotted stable manure 
■which must not be brought in direct contact 
^s\%h. the roots. Never use rank unfermented 
manure under any circumstances. If the 
ground is in fair fertility about three or four 
hundred pounds of bone and from twenty to 
fifty bushels of unleached wood ashes per acre 
will do the business. They should be culti- 
vated in and thoroughly incorporated with the 
soil. I give a dressing of ashes every year. I 
am satisfied it gives richer flavor to fruit and 
ripens the wood much better. 
Preparing the (Jround. 
The ground should be plowed as deep and 
made as fine and mellow as possible. Some 
people dig holes two feet deep and four or five 
feet across and fill them up with rich top soil 
to within a few inches of the top of the 
ground and then set the vine and afterwards 
fill full. If the soil is porous or quite sandy, so 
the water will settle away quickly, this is pre- 
cisely the right thing to do. But if you have 
a firm soil, a stiff clay, it is precisely the lorong 
thing to do; the water will soak into the soft 
earth and hold it there like a tub and destroy 
the vigor of the vine. In the latter case break 
up the ground as deeply as possible and set the 
vine not too deep. The roots should be short- 
ened to from twelve to fifteen inches in length 
and straightened out in every direction, care 
being taken that they do not cross each other. 
The soil should be firmed around the roots and 
kept mellow by frequent cultivation. 
Never put any manure in the hill when set- 
ting. Manure seems to be rank poison to a 
young grape root. More vines die from 
this than any other cause. Don't do it. Never 
mulch a grape vine. The soil should be warm 
where the roots are feeding. 
The vines may grow as they please the first 
year, but the second year must be staked or 
trellised and pruned to three buds; after they 
start rub off all but the strongest one. Wa 
prefer strong, well rooted one year old vines. 
Pruning. 
There are a great many ways of doing this, 
but we give the one we use and believe it to be 
the best. Bear in mind that fruit grows on the 
present year's growth from canes of last year's 
growth. Very rarely a fruiting bud is found 
on an old cane. 
The Trellis. 
We use what is known as the Kniffen sys- 
tem. Two wires are used; the lower one not 
less than three and one-half feet from the 
ground and the second fully two feet above 
the first. The vine is allowed four arms, each 
extending two to four feet out on each wire. 
Then prune each lateral back to from one to 
three buds, leaving in all not more than from 
twenty to forty buds, according to the vigor of 
the vine, and then the grapes should be 
thinned soon after the fruit sets so as not to 
leave more than thirty to forty clusters. The 
clusters will be larger and better flavor and 
ripen much earlier. A strong, healthy vine 
will always set more fruit than it can ripen 
and the following year will be weaker, so that 
close pruning and thinning one year with 
another is the only way to secure continued 
