1881 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
47 
he is, with his restless activity, wonderful 
energy, and his better education. Mr. Read 
assures the British farmers that if they can 
get over the next twenty-five years they need 
not fear American competition. “ It will be 
all the same a hundred years from now,” is 
an old and frequently repeated saying that 
has much more truth than comfort in it. 
Propagating the Grape Vine. 
While some varieties of our native grapes 
propagate with ease—a cutting, long or short, 
taking root in the open ground, cuttings of 
others can only be successfully propagated 
on a cutting-bench, or with other provision 
for bottom heat, and there are a few that 
resist even this treatment, and must be lay¬ 
ered, if we would multiply them. A note 
from D. Strang, Lincoln Co., Tenn., reminds 
us of a method which we have practised suc¬ 
cessfully, but which is not given in the works 
on grape culture, and does not seem to be 
generally known—which is by Root Grafting. 
Mr. S. received cuttings of the Herbemont 
from a friend, who remarked 
that he had never been able to 
make that variety grow from 
cuttings. The wood was cut 
into cions of two buds each, 
and, says Mr. S., “splice-graft¬ 
ed upon six-inch pieces of 
roots of the Winter Grape, of 
about the same thickness. 
The junction was closely 
wrapped and firmly tied with 
twine, without wax, and the 
grafts treated like ordinary 
cuttings. They made good 
plants,and,unlike stock grafts, 
were free from suckers.” The 
few of our nurserymen who 
propagate the grape in this 
manner, instead of splice¬ 
grafting (a modification of 
which, called whip-grafting, 
was shown last month on 
page 6), use the saddle-graft. 
The stock (in this case the 
root) is cut to form a wedge, 
shown at b in the engraving ; 
the cion, a, has a correspond¬ 
ing opening made in its lower 
end, and the two are neatly and closely fit¬ 
ted together. With the grape it is only neces¬ 
sary to tie firmly, as the use of wax in any 
grafting of the vine seems to be detrimental. 
Root-grafting of the grape, like that of the 
apple described last month, may be done in 
winter, and the grafts must be packed in soil 
or sand, to prevent drying. Whether this 
method will succeed with Norton’s Virginia, 
so difficult to propagate other than by layers, 
we are not informed, and hope that some one 
of our friends who grow that variety will try 
it. Most varieties difficult to grow from 
cuttings in the open air, like the Delaware and 
other hard-wooded sorts, are easily managed 
by Mr. Patrick’s method, first published by 
the American Agriculturist some 12 years 
ago, and which should be more generally 
known. The cuttings, of two eyes or more, are 
tied in bundles, and “puddled ” or “ grouted ” 
by dipping their lower half in thin mud, made 
of loamy soil. The cuttings are then put in a 
cold frame, bottom end up, fine earth sprin¬ 
kled in among them, covered with four inches 
of soil, and when freezing takes place, the 
frame is filled with leaves and boards placed 
GRAPE STOCK 
AND CION. 
over it. In early spring the boards and leaves 
are removed, sashes put on, and the frame 
cared for, ventilated, etc., as if it contained 
plants. Here the cuttings get “ bottom heat,” 
or heat at their lower ends, while their upper 
ends are kept cool; they form good roots 
in five or six weeks after the sashes are put 
on, and are ready to set in nursery rows. 
The putting in frames is done in autumn, but 
those who have cuttings can puddle them 
now, lower end up, in boxes, as above 
described for frames, covered with earth 
in a cool cellar, and place them in a cold 
frame as above, whenever the weather will 
allow. It should be observed that the object 
is to keep the end of the cutting from which 
the buds are to push, cooler than the other, 
or lower end, which is to produce roots ; this 
is done by reversing, placing the root end 
of the cutting where it will get the heat 
of the sun, and push roots, while the other 
end is below the reach of this and cooler. 
Ten Deaths Bear Witness. 
Houghton Farm, 
New Adjustable Cattle Stalls. 
In September 1878 we gave a view of the 
fine barn at Houghton Farm with plans show¬ 
ing the arrangement of the interior. In 
speaking of the bam as “ fine,” we use that 
term in its best sense, and refer to solidity,, 
thoroughness and fitness for the uses to be 
made of it, rather than to anything like 
ornamentation or show. When first built the 
quarters of the cattle were fitted with stan¬ 
chions ; these were on several accounts un- 
Cf - . ^ 
a,, A m 
C J 1 L- 
C J * c 
CJ H % 
C 2- C 
3 - C 
! * 
b i 
c 
i & § 
c 
Ever since kerosene and other petroleum 
products came into general use, the American 
Agriculturist has insisted that unless they 
could be made safe, we had better give up 
their brilliant light, and use something that 
did not illuminate our dwellings at the risk 
of our lives, even if it took us back to the 
tallow dips of our grandmothers. With this 
view, and long before there were any laws 
regulating its sale, we have endeavored, by 
encouraging the use of safe oils, and de¬ 
nouncing the poor and cheap oils, to make it 
safe to use kerosene. Some years ago, when 
a lamp was brought to us, the principal claim 
for which was that it allowed poor oils to be 
used with safety, we refused to advertise it, 
and warned people against burning cheap oils 
in any lamp. So the recipes sold pretending 
to make a very cheap lyiuminating oil, by 
adding inert substances to Benzine, have been 
exposed as wickedly dangerous. These light 
petroleum products, Gasoline, Benzine, Naph¬ 
tha, etc., are of necessity produced in the 
manufacture of safe kerosene, in larger 
quanties than there is any demand for, and 
refiners are puzzled to get rid of them. They 
are dangerously cheap, and there is great 
temptation to use them to adulterate good 
kerosene, and to disguise them in such 
a manner as will make a sale for them. 
We took the ground that, whatever the 
contrivance for burning them safely, 
it was dangerous—fatally so, to have 
them around in common use, and to 
be handled by those who knew nothing 
of their possibilities for danger. To the 
propriety of our position an occurrence 
in New York the first week in January 
bore most melancholy witness. The wa¬ 
ter pipes in a crowded tenement house were in 
the hands of the plumbers ; a lamp filled with 
one of these petroleum products—Gasoline— 
was used by them to thaw out a pipe. There 
was an explosion ; ten, mostly women and 
children, were shortly after taken from that 
house as black and charred bodies. They 
were not killed by the Gasoline directly, but 
the rapid conflagration it started cut off ten 
poor creatures before they could escape. Sad 
testimony this to the danger of having such 
deadly liquids in common use. In view of 
their possibilities for maiming and killing, it 
would seem that their sale needs legal re¬ 
striction as much as does that of gunpowder. 
D 
E 
F 
Fig. 1.— GROUND PLAN OP CATTLE STABLE. 
desirable, and in their place stalls have been 
made which are so constructed that they may 
be adjusted to the size of the animal. A 
ground plan of a portion of the stable is 
shown in figure 1; A being the feeding alley. 
The manger B, B, is made of planks, b, b, 
which fit into cleated grooves at the ends and 
can be adjusted to any desired width by 
moving the planks forward or backward. 
The stalls, C, C, can be shortened by moving 
both the front and rear manger planks back¬ 
ward, in which case smaller animals are 
brought to the rear, that their droppings 
may fall into the manure gutter, shown at 
D. The stalls are 3 feet and 4 inches wide, 
and the partitions are 5 feet and 8 inches 
long. There is a platform in the rear shown 
at E, in the engravings. The wall of the 
Fig. 2.— SECTIONAL SIDE VIEW OP STABLE. 
stable is shown at F; the passage-way is at G, 
closed by a gate at H. Figure 2 gives a side 
view of the stable, drawn to the same scale 
as figure 1, and with the letters correspond¬ 
ing : A, is the feeding alley in front of stalls; 
B, the manger; D, the manure gutter, and E 
the platform at the rear. A five-eighth inch 
iron rod K, 20 inches long, is fastened to the 
side of the partition and carries the sliding 
tie-chain. Perhaps one or two more animals 
might be stalled in the same space with the 
stanchions, but the freedom of movement 
allowed by the stalls, and consequent greater 
comfort of the animals more than compensate 
for the slightly increased room they occupy. 
