THE CULTIVATOR 
Wild Grapes of Canada, 
Messrs. Editors —Annexed is a drawing of a wild 
grape, found by the writer on the banks of the Chippewa 
Creek, in the year 1355, when expressly in search of na¬ 
tive hardy grapes. The variety struck me at once, verv 
forcibly, as one of great 
importance. Its captivat¬ 
ing and unusually symmet¬ 
rical clusters, at first sight 
carried me quite away. I 
threw oft' hat and coat, and 
quickly ascended the vine 
to the height of 80 feet or 
more, where I could pick 
at least half a bushel of the 
most perfect grown clusters I ever be¬ 
held. I tasted, and in my loneliness 
cried out “superb!” Superb! respon¬ 
ded echo. I ate heartily, and thanked 
Dame Nature for so great a prise—procured 
a bundle of cuttings and then started for 
home. The vine runs through and covers the 
entire top of two medium 3 ized el'm trees, 
and is, I judge, a full century old—a wilding 
of great beauty. How it came there no 
one knows—probably carried by birds from some 
Frenchman’s garden, and dropped in the wood 
upward of a century since. 
Bunches very handsome, symmetrical, good 
size, compact, heavily shouldered ; berries medium 
size ; skin thin, black, covered with a bloom ; flesh 
tender, melting, without pulpiness, foxiness or musky 
flavor, sweet and excellent. The wood is strong, short 
jointed, of a redish iron color ; foliage very large and 
thin, green on both sides, having no hair or cotton, 
and unmistakably shows no kin to the Fox. Important 
as a parent to cross with foreign grapes, on account ot 
its extreme hardiness and early maturity, as I found 
it ripe on the i0th of fjspl, on the original vine in 1857. 
I will send you a drawing and characteristic of two 
other wildings, found the present year, of which I took 
a sketch at tho time. A plant of the Chippewa in my 
garden will probably bow fruit next year? if so, you 
may see some of the cW-cters. Ws. H. Read. 
CoA of Ihi'jiTig Indian Com. 
Ed 3. C’JJ.f. And Co. Ggnt. — Do farmers usually 
know the comparative cost and profit of particular 
crops I I am trying to find out, and should be pleased 
to learn through, your paper how the experience of 
others compares with my own. I subjoin my account 
with a cornfield of 18 acres worked this summer, to be 
used as you think best. The ground and the corn have 
been measured—there is no guess-work about it. 
Timber originally walnut, ash, sugar and beech— 
has ooen under cultivation twenty years—last year 
wa3 Ip wheat, and the year before in corn. The soil 
dark —10 inches deep, with a clay bottom—was broke 
up eight inches deep with a span of horses .- 
Vca'.n and hand, 12f days breaking, $2.00,.$25.50 
Grit of seed, laying oft’ and planting. 13.85 
S r 4 days work, harrowing, plowing, hoeing, &c., 
'j 7£ cents,. 26.90 
'^a of team, equal to 26f days single, 52 cents,_ 13.91 
Repairing Tools,. 1.00 
Rearing* Calves. 
Entire cost, board, labor and all,. $80.36 
The yield is 1,350 bushels—costing before gathering 
not quite six cents per bushel. W. A. G. Ripley, O. 
Eds Cult, and Co. Gent. — I have often read in 
Agricultural papers of the different modes of rearing 
calves, and the best manner to adopt so as to turn them 
out fine and as cheaply as possible in the spring. 
I will give you the method I pursued with the two 
first calves which I raised. I let them suck from three 
to four weeks; then put them in a good pasture, and 
gave as much milk as they couTd drink, for a couple of 
weeks, adding a handful of meal when I diminished the 
quantity of milk. In the beginning of winter I fed 
hay, with a little meal now and then, and finished win¬ 
tering (being short of hay,) on good straw; and I 
turned out two as fine calves of our small breed of cat¬ 
tle, as you could have se< n. This winter I have six 
calves ; the two youngest — one of four and the other 
three months old—are fine looking. Morning and eve¬ 
ning they get clover, (the second crop,) which is ten¬ 
der ; and at noon cut turnips and straw. Three times 
a week the quantities of turnips are diminished, and 
replaced with two handfuls of oil cake and corn, or oat 
meal, and in the spring I will inform you how my 
calves look. N. Si. M ., C. _E. 
