angle. This is important, as it facilitates the laying down of the vine; it also helps to check the rapid flow of the sap, and induces fruitfulness. The flow of sap to the fruit-buds, is better conveyed to them in a horizontal position. The whole piece of ground ought to be worked to a good depth with a sub-soil plow; no deep trenching or digging is necessary. Delawares planted eight feet apart, and Roger's Hybrids, and other strong growing varieties, ten to twelve. The roots of the vine should be planted eight inches below the surface, and the ground kept well worked, as in the cultivation of corn, and its fertility maintained by judicious manuring. It is a great error to think that the vineyard needs no manure.

TRAINING. The first year, it is best to let only one cane grow, leaving all the laterals from it to make an undisturbed growth. Cut this cane back in the fall to three or four buds. Two canes only should be allowed to grow the succeeding season, if the plant is sufficiently strong; if not, only one, and cut that back in the fall as in the previous year. Two canes are grown the third year, and cut back to four or six feet according to varieties, and the laterals all cut off; these, in the spring, are tied horizontally to the lower trellis bar. The buds at each joint form fruit-bearing shoots, and these, as they grow, are tied perpendicularly to the trellis. The lateral branches of the fruit-bearing shoots are checked by pinching off the ends, and the shoots themselves pinched off two or three leaves beyond the last bunch of grapes. The growth of the upright cane is stopped, by pinching off in August. A little practical experience and observation will enable anyone of ordinary intelligence to understand and practice this. In the fall, the fruit-bearing canes are cut back to three or four buds, forming what are called spurs; two canes are grown from each spur the following spring, and these cut back as in the previous season, and this system is followed from year to year. There are many other methods of training which can be easily learned by a little experience. The whole surface of the ground ought to be worked and kept loose to the depth of four or five inches, and no roots suffered to grow from the vine within that distance from the surface. The choicest varieties can be grown about as easily as the common ones, producing as large crops, that will bring twice the price in the market.

The grape is not a very perishable fruit, if carefully handled. Picked from the vines in shallow boxes in dry weather, the Dela

ware, Roger's Hybrids, Diana and others may be kept sound in a cool, dry place, till April. The fruit is in much demand in the winter, and is especially valuable to convalescents, when perfectly ripened. But comparatively few persons are aware of the fact of the valuable properties of this fruit as an article of diet for invalids, or persons in ill-health. The greatest pains are taken in some countries to provide and preserve in a fresh state, well ripened grapes for the delicate and infirm, and physicians always recommend their use. It is the most nutritive and wholesome of all fruits, containing more saccharine than any other, and has no injurious acids when fully ripe; the only acid of any amount being tartaric. Every family having a garden spot of suitable soil, ought to raise a plentiful supply for home use at least.

The yield of the grape is large; from six to ten thousand pounds per acre. Its culture in America has received a great impetus from the introduction of new, choice varieties, and all interested in our State must rejoice in the fact that Wisconsin has had a practical success in grape growing, that promises the best success.

HORTICULTURE IN THE NORTHWEST.

C. ANDREWS, ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN.

The invitation to meet with you and join in the discussions at your meeting, recalls many pleasant associations of the past, but finds me further away from your city than formerly, but still, not out of the region that may be properly called the great northwest; horticulturally, however, I find my "environments" considerably changed. The peach and apricot are now showing an abundant supply of uninjured fruit buds; a sight I have not seen since 1868, when, at Elgin, Illinois, Jack Frost, and Old Boreas bore down upon the "maiden orchard of my hopes," and at one fell swoop destroyed it root and branch. It then contained bearing specimens of fine peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, and nearly all the ' high-blood” cherries, from the Yellow Spanish to Kirtland's Mary; and what, if possible, I regarded as a still more serious disaster, it destroyed my initial orchards of apples, one at Elgin, one on Wash

ington Island, at the entrance of Green Bay, and one at Green Bay City. Out of two thousand Baldwin, Rhode Island Greening, Roxbury Russet, Northern Spy, and Belmont apples, not a score survived to become bearing trees. The vicisitudes of fruit-growing in the northwest since 1850, 25 years ago, need not be recounted. But to a close observer, one result is evident. The reverses which have overtaken cultivators of fruit "west of the lakes," has had a tendency not to repress advances in horticultural knowledge, but on the contrary to stimulate them. The region of northern Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, to-day contains, in my opinion, a rural population, as a class, better informed upon the leading topics of pomology and the art of horticulture, than the same classes, either in western New York or Michigan, where the obstacles to successful fruit-culture, are not near so numerous. the solution of this apparent anomoly is sought, it will undoubtedly be found in the well recognized principle that obstacles to the success of any necessary pursuit of man, when not too formidible, always acts as stimulants to energy, and to intellectual development in that direction.

If

Thus the principle of compensation, or as the philosophers would say, "correllation of forces" has been at work in the northwest, and what the people of that section have lost in one direction, they have gained in another. Not only has the result been to sharpen the intellects of all classes in discovering and testing new varieties that might take the places of their old favorites, but the practices and processes of culture have been improved. As a rule, more care is taken of the orchard by northwestern farmers, than is done in Michigan, as far as my observation goes.

In choice of location, and selection of varieties, the planter in the former section is obliged to be informed, though often his knowledge has been gained through repeated disasters. But the causes of these disasters has given rise to close study and combined investigation, and one prominent cause, no doubt, of the high character and numerous attendance at your annual meeting, has been the fixed determination of an energetic race of men to overcome the difficulties that lie in the path of an improved and successful horticulture. And it is more than probable, that if the possible productiveness of the orchards of Wisconsin and Michigan could be compared, the loss from neglect and want of intelli

gent selection and culture would prove far greater, in proportion, in this highly-favored fruit State, than in the former. And this is not intended as allowing you to lay "that flattering, unction to your soul," that there is not a vast amount of neglect and ignorance in the care of orchards in your own State. But in this State it seems almost generally to be taken for granted that the orchard is a mere side-issue, a thing which, when once planted, is expected to take care of itself, and, indeed, ought to ask pardon for ever being in the way of the plow, the cultivator, the mower, and the hay-rack. It is looked upon as a mere usurper of the soil, which is needed for other crops which the owner persists in taking off from year to year. The young tree is regarded as an organism endowed with such wonderful vitality and recuperative power, that it can be run over by the harrow, barked by the long whiffle-tree, nicked by the sickle-blade, nibbled by sheep, rabbits, mice, or perhaps twisted and rubbed by neat cattle, and still be able to heal up all its own wounds and go right on growing, just as though nothing had happened to it. And, what is far worse, if possible, for the poor, suffering tree, it is left exposed to the influence of our fierce "sou-westers" till it assumes an angle of forty-five degrees east by northeast, and in that position, summer and winter, is compelled to receive the full force of the sun's rays upon its bare, blistering trunk, producing hideous burns and scalds which become cancers and poison the vitality of the whole tree. I have been struck with the frequency of this unsightly and ghastly condition of orchard-trees in this State, and think it is even more general than among you. And not one in ten of the farmers, I ought to say boors, who allow this condition of things, seem to know that it is the wind that causes their trees to lean, or the sun that burns them on the southwest side. "O!" they exclaim, "this is not a windy climate like yours." But when the diseased and dying condition of their trees is pointed out, and their evident disposition to go east," as though to escape from such cruel treatment, you hear the almost universal and stolid reply, "somehow trees don't seem to do as well as they ought to." The men are not doing as well as they ought to; that is the secret. They have cut away the forests and have not replaced them with belts; they systematically abuse and neglect the trees; exhaust the soil upon which they stand by taking off grain and grass-crops, and then, because the trees do

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not flourish and yield abundant crops of fair fruit, they set it down to the fault of the seasons or the “bugs."

The rigorous climate of the northwest has obliged farmers to be more careful of the feelings of their trees, more tender in the treatment of their diseases and in the supply of their wants, and in this they have reaped a double reward; they have secured, if only a scanty supply of fruit, yet an equivalant in a higher culture and refinement resulting from this very care and study and skill, which they here found it necessary to use; "A merciful man is merciful to his trees." No man of culture or refinement can neglect either his trees or his beasts, and the necessity of caring for them is sure to make him a merciful, and therefore a refined man. The folly of expecting an orchard to yield fine fruit without being fed or shielded from adverse weather, is as gross as that of expecting a colt or a litter of pigs to "turn out well" without hay, or corn or Last week I met a man who said he was " about discouraged planting trees." Why? He had lost a hundred fine bearing trees out of an orchard of three hundred. He had sown the whole to rye; on a part, the rye did not catch well, so he plowed it up in the spring and planted potatoes and beans. The rye grew very tall, but every tree in that part of the orchard winter killed the next winter, while those in the rest of the orchard were uninjured. "The ground froze up dry" he said, was the cause of it. The dry brains of the owner and the robber rye was the cause of it. This man's profit and loss account stands thus:

cover.

Items like this can no doubt be found in the account of hundreds of farmers, who are cursing the climate and the droughts, anything but their own dull intellects and greedy dispositions, as the cause of their losses.

But I must not close this hasty but already lengthy paper, without referring to other topics suggested by my change of residence. One of the greatest losses, financially, to all sections, is the lack of caution and of security in procuring the best varieties, both for productiveness, use, and for marketing in each season. The system of