The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1880-01-15
Grating Grapeylnes,

Those who wish 10 graft their vines
with other vines should remember, says
the Germantown Telegraph, that win
ter, and not spring, is the time for it
and in this the grape is different from
most other trees. 1t is different in this,
that in the spring OF the year there is
such a tremendous pressure upward by
the ascending sap that the cion and
stock which are to unite must OF course
touch one another, are forced by the
sap apart. When the gratis are put in
at this season there is little Of this. The
severed cells granulate and heal, and
when the sap is ready to flow upward
strongly, it goes up through its regular
channel. in the graft without any ten
dency to break out through the juno
tion.
How to graft or apevines admits o
many various replies. The test is
probably that described years ago in our
pages by Samuel Miller, then Of Leba-
non, in this state. now OF Missouri, who
was very successful as a CRATER Of the
grape. He drew away the soil from the
stock to be grated, cut it down about
two inches from the surface, then cut
with a stout sharp knife a long and mar.
row wedge.shaped notch in the stock,
nd shaped the cion as a wedge to fiji
the notch in the stock. The lips Of the
notch are then tied together and the
earth drawn in around the whole, leav-
ing the upper eye Of the graft above the
ground.
We may say that it is very astonish-
iEg that grape grating is not more
generally ~practiced, and especially since
the discovery that the great success Of
the Concord, Clinton and a few other
grapes, is not owing to any extra con-
stitutional hardness, but to the fact
that the power to throw out numerous
fbrous roots is greater in these kinds.
II this be tr g, and it seems to be really
the case, we may have the choicest and
best of grapes by grating them on these
vigorous roofing stocks.
Sweet Potatoes in Winter.
The agricultural editor of the Mobile
Register replies to a correspondents
inquiries as to the cultivation and bank.
ing of the sweet potato as follows:
Cotton seed meal and cotton seed hull
ashes, mixed half and half, would make
a most excellent fertilizer for the sweet
potato. 1t might be applied to extreme
ly poor land at the rate OF 1000 pounds
to the acre--500 pounds worked into
the ridge at the time of making, and the
other 500 used as a top dressing before
drawing up the dirt on the ridge at the
first working, after the plants had been
put out.
As to banking, we have yet found
nothing better than the old way
Handle the potatoes carefully 80 Gs not
to bruise them: do not pitch them upon
the heaps at the digging, as most per
SOM do. That method causes more
potatoes to rot than anything else. A
potato should not be so much as aver
dropped upon the pile-it should all the
time be handled as carefully as an egg.
Found the bank upon a slight concav.
ity in the surface of the ground, covered
with about six inches in depth of dry
pine straw. Other kinds of straw could
be made to act in regions where the pine
does not grow conveniently, Place
buy. fifteen bushels of carefully-as.
sorted potatoes in a sharp conical heap.
Cover with pine straw to the depth Of
six inches, and leave a few days to dry
out and air. Next cover the pine straw
with a layer of pine bark, in large
pieces, and lastly with a coating of earth
sufficiently thick to protect the potatoes
from the coolest weather. Place a wide
piece OF pine bark over the top Of the
bank to prevent the water from running
down into the peak when it rains; that
is, if you do not erect a shed wei your
bank, which is really not necessary. If
the bank is to be opened for the pur-
pose of taking potatoes out during
winter, some bits of split board had best
be placed around, leaning on the pota'
toes from the ground to the peak, before
putting on the straw, to prevent the
covering from falling in when a portion
of the potatoes have been taken out.