Practical papers—grape growing. 
393 
I have been greatly encouraged in my hopes for the success of 
the grape in our state by the favorable accounts from this Fox 
river valley and region. Our friends, who visited your fair last au¬ 
tumn, returned with wonderful stories of mammoth clusters and ber¬ 
ries with which their eyes and palates were feasted. Your represent¬ 
atives at the late meeting of the State Horticultural Society gave 
the most favorable reports of the grape. In our part of the state 
we can report the like favorable results, while our eastern friends 
who visit us are astonished that such fruit can be raised in Wis¬ 
consin. 
What I have said has been with special reference to raising the 
grape for use as a fruit. In its use for the manufacture of wine, 
I have had no experience. Neither have I made reference to the 
vine as an ornamental plant, though on this point full chapters 
are often, and justly written, and it has been a matter of surprise 
to me that woman has not more frequently seen its beauty and 
grace and found greater pleasure and recreation in the garden cul¬ 
ture of the grape. After the first work of planting, and with the 
exception of the winter covering and its removal in spring, the 
labor is scarcely greater than that of the flower garden. Why not 
then divide your care and taste and give the vine a place beside 
the flowers ? The growing beauty of the cluster may not so sud¬ 
denly surprise you as the bursting rose, but the reward is far 
richer. 
A chaste writer gives us, in the most delicate language, its 
grace and beauty. “The vine is one of the most graceful of 
plants. Its beauty is not of a glaring or self asserting character,, 
but quiet and unobtrusive. It is not possessed of showy colored 
flowers, but is distinguished for the grace of its foliage, the 
fragrance of its blossoms, the exquisite symmetry of its fruit, and 
its full, overspreading luxuriance. Every leaf in its shape, vena¬ 
tion and coloring, is a model of beauty, while painters tell us that 
to study the perfection of form, color, light and shade united in 
one object, we must place before us a bunch of grapes. In every 
country where it is cultivated, the vine forms one of the most 
beautiful features of the landscape.” 
If then it combines with the useful, so much of beauty and 
grace, let us unite to make Wisconsin the home of the vine. 
