Grapeshot

“ It is the path of the dog following the hot scent—ever baffled.
A hundred days to lift out of those tiny seed these powerful stalks, hollow, hairy, covered with their tough fibre,—that strength of cables when the big ships are tugged at by the joined fury of wind and ocean. And now some morning at the corner of the field stand the black men with hooks and whetstones. The hook, a keen, straight blade, bent at right angles to the handle two feet from the hand. Let these men be the strongest; no weakling can handle the hemp from seed to seed again. ”

“ Prater sailing on the Chattahoochee, feasting on grapes that had dropped from the overhanging vines. This remarkable species of wild grape has a stout stem, sometimes five or six inches in diameter, smooth bark and hard wood, quite unlike any other wild or cultivated grapevine that I have seen. The grapes are very large, some of them nearly an inch in diameter, globular and fine flavored. Usually there are but three or four berries in a cluster, and when mature they drop off instead of decaying on the vine. ”

“ The grape vine in the vineyard is not ornamental, but only because its beauty is marred by the formal shapes in which it must be trained to meet the purposes of the cultivator. But as a festoon for an arbor, or for hiding a neglected building, for the porch of the farmhouse, or for any place where a bold or picturesque effect is wanted, or for giving an expression of strength, no vine surpasses some of the varieties of our native grapes. Properly planted they are not only beautiful in themselves but attractive through their suggestiveness. ”

“ Those two vines, the hop and the grape, so luxuriant and beautiful in their natural state, alike lose much of their peculiar grace, when cultivated in the common way; at a distance, a hop-ground and a vineyard very much resemble each other, though the hop is trained much higher than the grape; the poles and stakes in each case go far toward destroying the beauty of the plants. ”

“ Should they heave up an inch or more, if well pressed down, they will start and make better growth than cuttings set in the spring. In either case, however, the cuttings should always be made in the fall.
A Rural New Yorker correspondent gets down to the real art of grape eating. Hear him tell how to manipulate the fruit: No! the man who holds the grape between his thumb and dexter finger and squeezes or shoots the pulp into his throat, does not know how to enjoy the fruit, and is not likely to appreciate the good qualities of a fine grape. ”

“ The excrement of the hoppers also covers the grapes largely, and spoils their appearance and keeping quality, at least as table grapes. It is principally the table grapes and wine grapes which are injured by this insect; the former are made unfit for shipment, and the latter do not color well when deprived of their leaves. If the grapevines are kept growing, the grapes are less injured, and some growers even contend that the hopper is advantageous, as it causes the leaves to fall and the grapes to mature. ”

“ Sometimes, in following up a watercourse among our hills, in the early spring, one comes to a weird and desolate place, where one huge wild grapevine has wreathed its ragged arms around a whole thicket and brought it to the ground,—swarming to the tops of hemlocks, clenching a dozen young maples at once and tugging them downward, stretching its wizard black length across the underbrush, into the earth and out again, wrenching up great stones in its blind, aimless struggle. ”

“ At five o'clock in the evening I again set off. The spectacle of yesterday evening was repeated, and at sunset the grasshoppers again began to sing. For about a league the journey lies between walls above which the grape-espaliers are visible. Other walls, which are not high enough, have been eked out with stones, thorns, etc., to prevent passengers from plucking off the grapes. Many owners sprinkle the foremost rows with lime, which renders the grapes uneatable, but does not hurt the wine, as the process of fermentation drives out the heterogeneous matter. ”

“ Boys and girls in smocks stained with grape-juice, with grapes in their hands and mouths, ran after their mothers. On the road you continually came across tattered labourers with baskets of grapes on their powerful shoulders; Cossack maidens, veiled with kerchiefs to their eyes, drove bullocks harnessed to carts laden high with grapes. Soldiers who happened to meet these carts asked for grapes, and the maidens, clambering up without stopping their carts, would take an armful of grapes and drop them into the skirts of the soldiers’ coats. ”

“ All day women plodded from the fields to the roadside with great buckets of grapes to be dumped into barrels on waiting ox-carts. Men wearing heavy wooden shoes jumped now and then into the barrels and stamped the grapes down. When full, the barrels were covered with strips of dirty canvas, the farmer climbed into his cart, turned his oxen into the highway, and promptly fell asleep. When he reached the village, he drew up before the chute of the village wine-press, and shoveled his grapes into a slowly revolving hopper. ”

“ On their heads are the baskets of grapes, and they never drop nor spill them, but carry them steadily down the steep, narrow path to the great vats, where the young men stand on short ladders to reach the top, and pour in the purple fruit. ”

“ Thus the ring-dove breeds in my fields, though they are continually frequented; and the missel-thrush, though most shy and wild in the autumn and winter, builds in my garden close to a walk where people are passing all day long.
Wall-fruit abounds with me this year: but my grapes, that used to be forward and good, are at present backward beyond all precedent: and this is not the worst of the story; for the same ungenial weather, the same black cold solstice, has injured the more necessary fruits of the earth, and discoloured and blighted our wheat. The crop of hops promises to be very large. ”

“ The grape and many other vines are furnished with tendrils, which spring from the root of the leaf-stalk; that of the grapevine is slightly branched, but not furnished with any hook. One of its tendrils usually grows close to the stem of the fruit, and thus sustains the heavy bunch of grapes which must otherwise, when it increases to a weight of many pounds, either break from its stem, or else pull down the branch on which it grows. ”

“ Thus, species differ widely in resistance to phylloxera, the grape-louse, to the grape leaf-hopper, the flea-beetle, berry-moth, root-worm, powdery-mildew, downy-mildew, anthracnose and other insect and fungous troubles of this fruit.
The structure of the bark is an important distinguishing character for some species, but is of little importance in identifying the variety and has no economic value to the fruit-grower. In most species of grapes, the bark has distinct lenticels and on the old wood separates in long thin strips and fibers ”

“ Very fair pears have been raised by dropping a seed into a good soil and letting it alone for years; but finer and choicer are raised by the watchings, tendings, prunings of the gardener. Wild grape-vines bore very fine grapes, and an abundance of them, before our friend Dr. Grant took up his abode at Iona, and, studying the laws of Nature, conjured up new species of rarer fruit and flavor out of the old. ”

“ Summer pruning is practiced by some, but not by all growers, there being considerable difference of opinion as to the value of this operation. Sulphuring is practiced by all growers, some sulphuring only once, but the best vineyards are sulphured three or more times. Oidium or mildew never appears in sulphured vineyards. Some few growers sulphur with great success against the colure or dropping of the grapes. Leaf-hoppers are common, but do no great harm. Grasshoppers and grape caterpillars were troublesome one or two seasons, but have not reappeared of late. ”

“ The long pale-green chains at the ends of all the branches hang limp and flexile, shaken with every breath of wind, or, falling over other branches, drape and festoon the whole shrub exquisitely. The catkins of the female shrub are stouter and more rigid than those of the male; but when the fruit is mature, they lengthen out into beautifully tinted clusters of little papery-coated grapes, which are quite attractive in themselves. ”

“ Directly in the vicinity is a beautiful grapery, with the richest clusters of grapes literally covering the top, sides and walls of the greenhouse, which stands in the midst of a garden, gay with dahlias and amaranths and every variety of flowers, with delicious fruits thickly studding the well-trained trees. ”

“ It was as if a mighty old grapevine, long stripped of fruit and foliage, long fallen away from every living thing, long trailing along the earth—deeply covered with mould and weeds—as if such a mighty, twisted, hard old grapevine were suddenly to put forth strong new tendrils, and, entwining them around a young tree, should thus begin to rise again toward the last light of life's sunset. ”

“ When they are very strong, preserve only a part, and cut off the rest in the fall. In November, cut off all the two main stems except eight eyes. After the second year, no more pruning is needed, except to reduce the side shoots, for the purpose of increasing the fruit. All the pruning of grapes (except nipping side shoots) must be done when the sap is not running, or they will bleed to death. Train them on poles, or lattices, to expose them to the air and sun. Cover tender vines in the autumn. Grapes are propagated by cuttings, layers, and seeds. ”

“ Sometimes the tubs attract the careful superintendent: he turns up the clusters, to ascertain that no leaves nor useless length of tendril are entombed in the juicy masses, and anon directs his steps to the pressing-trough, anxious to find that the lusty treaders are persevering manfully in their long-continued dance.'
The pressure of the grapes is a curious part of the process in an age of mechanical improvement like the present. It is performed by men treading among the fruit with their naked feet. ”

“ The best spray is a half pint of Black Leaf 40 to a hundred gallons of water or bordeaux mixture. It is applied to the under side of the foliage by a trailing hose or by an automatic grape leaf-hopper spray devised by F. Z. Hartzell and described in bulletin 344 of the New York Experiment Station. The destruction of hibernating places is almost as effective a method of control as spraying. All weeds and strong-stalked grasses which die in the fall and all rubbish in the vineyard should be destroyed. ”

“ It is not uncommon to preserve grapes in must, and so make them drunk with their own juices; while there are some that are all the sweeter for being placed in must after it has been boiled; others, again, are left to hang on the parent tree till a new crop has made its appearance, by which time they have become as clear and as transparent1126 as glass. Astringent pitch, if poured upon the footstalk of the grape, will impart to it all that body and that firmness which, when placed in dolia or amphoræ, it gives to wine. ”

“ Often the wild grapes, now with tender, crinkle-edged leaves two-thirds grown, swing in stout ropes across the street too, from one oak to another, and all these are also hung with the moss flags till they make the gloom grayer and deeper and in spite of the festive suggestion one half expects in the duskier corners to see the stones, the flash of the sacrificial knife, and hear the eerie chant of the elder priests. ”

“ Nature has expended her bounties in fullest measure for the vineyard. More than 2000 varieties of grapes are described in American viticultural literature, and twice as many more find mention in European treatises on the vine. Few other fruits offer the novelties given the grape in flavors, aromas, sizes, colors and uses. ”

“ Suckers and water-sprouts are less common on well-trained vines. It is necessary, too, by training to keep the bunches away from trunk, canes and other bunches and so prevent injury to the grapes.
Lastly, fashion, taste or a more or less abnormal use of the grapes, may prescribe the form in which a vine is trained. Fashion and taste run from very simple or natural styles to exceedingly complex, formal ones, depending, often, on the variety, the environment or other condition, but just as often on the whim of the grape-grower. ”

“ After the vines have flowered, the bearing laterals have their tips pinched off, and that is all the summer pruning the vine gets, except to rub off all eyes that start on the body below the crotch. Two to four shoots, according to strength of vine, are started from the forks or crotch and allowed to bear no fruit, but are trained along over the lower central wire for renewal canes. ”

“ As time goes on they will doubtless find that the land will be found suitable for both cantaloupes and watermelons and fruits of all kinds, including figs and grapes. In the matter of grapes alone, I happen to know that in a similar section in Butler County, Ala., a light, sandy land, with good clay subsoil, the finest of Scuppernong grape [518] arbors flourished, some of them covering a half-acre of ground, from which the best of home-made wines are brewed. ”

“ The grapes were churned from their stalks in a machine, the juice ran in a turgid river round the pressoir, and, paddling in this, the bare-legged workmen shovelled the grapes into the cuves, whose open maws gaped through trap-doors in the floor. Other men packed the stalks into a machine like a pair of stays ”