Fort Worth gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1891-1898, 1891-11-22
A SUSPICION OF FIsHINEss.

Our colony is testing the scuppernong
and male Muscadine grape question, and
we will be entirely satisfied if we get
scuppernong vine to bear as many grapes as
some of our Concord vines used to in IL
linois. That three barrels of good wine
from one grape vine, in single season" as
mentioned by you, sounds little 'tshy' to
US, but possibly ii is all right, rs we know
nothing about Southern grapes.
WALTER d. BENTLEY.
Clay county, Tex.
There is nothing in the least fishy about
it, but of course it might sound that way
to the man measuring the scuppernong by
the concord. We never make a statement
until we have at our fingers ends the best
of authority for it. We could refer you to
various parties who have made so much as
three barrels of good wine from single
scuppernong vine in a single season. One
will suffice, unless we are called upon for
more, SO we refer you to Squire c. l.
Depew of Chronicle, Mobile county, Ala.
q very intelligent gentlemen from one OF
the Northern states, who settled there in
days before the war; From two scupper-
nong vines. each fourteen years old, Squire
Depew has, in a single season, made six
barrels of good scuppernong wine. We
make this statement on our own personal
knowledge, for we were present and saw
him do it. You can write the squire for a
confirmation of this statement if yon desire
to do so.
If you Illinois colony folks have planted
your sruppernong vines as you would plant
concords, you have made a mistake. Those
two vines on Squire Depew's place occupy
together Tor did when the wine referred to
was made), more than one acre of ground.
We plant the scuppernons vine and
stake it up the first year. Next
year we set around it four posts about
six feet high and ten feet apart. On the
heads of these we placed rails forming
square Upon these rails we lay rails two
or three feet apart and allow the vines to
spread over them in every direction from
the center. The scuppernong is a wonder
full vine to branch, but we never trim off
any of the branches, but spread them over
the trellis. The next year we set more
posts around and place on more rails, and
so on from year to year so long as the vine
is disposed to spread. AT twelve or four
teen years of age the main trunk of the
vine will, where it rises from the ground,
be thicker than mans thigh, and many of
its branches atop of the trellis will be more
than fifty feet in length; and the mass of
tangled vines above the trellis will be from
two to three feet, through. Grapes will be
produced throughout this mass, and since
we cannot get at them to pick them off we
gather by shaking the vine. The ripe
grapes fall and are caught on sheet or
canvas held beneath.
OF course you understand that the SOUP
pernong is not a bunch grape. The berries
set in clusters of from three to dozen, and
when the vine is shaken the ripe berries
readily drop off. Those on the immediate
under side and edges of the mass of vines
may be gathered by picking, but all above
must be shaken off, which is a thing easily
enough done. The yield is immense under
favorable conditions.
A scuppernong vine comes into bearing at
from three to four years old, and continues
increasing in yield with the size and extent
of the vine, so long as the vine ives-a hun
dred years, possibly.
The only attention required BY the SOUP
pernong vine is to keep it well trellised up
and to occasionally top-dress the ground
beneath it with barnyard manure or some
other kind of fertilizing material. 1t does
not call for extreme richness of soil, but
something must be applied from time
to time else the mass OF roots
in the ground, which extend as
far as do the branches above, will
eventually exhaust the plant food, and
the vine will then begin to go into a de-
cline, as will be shown by checked growth
and an appearance of dead wood among the
mass of branches.