and cover them up
completely. In the spring when all danger from frost is over, I take a
so-called spading fork, and lift the vines. The entire cost of covering
an acre of grape vines and taking them up again in spring, will not
exceed $10; surely a trifling expense, if we can thereby ensure a full
crop.

We have thus a protection against the cold in winter, but I know none
against early frosts, in fall, and late spring frosts; and the grape
grower should therefore avoid all localities where they are prevalent.
The immediate neighborhood of large streams, or lakes, will generally
save the grape grower from their disastrous influence; and our summers,
here, along the banks of the Missouri river, are in reality full two
months longer than they are in the low, small valleys, only four to six
miles off. Let the grape grower, in choosing a locality, look well to
this, and avoid the hills along these narrow valleys. Either choose a
location sufficiently elevated, to be beyond their influence, or, what
is better still, choose it on the bluffs above our large streams; where
the atmosphere, even in the heat of summer, will never become too dry
for the health of the vine. It is a sad spectacle to see the hopes of a
whole summer frustrated by one cold night; to see the vines which
promised an abundant crop but the day before, browned and wilted beyond
all hopes of recovery, and the cheerless prospect before you, that it
may occur every spring; or to see the finest crop of grapes, when just
ripening, scorched and wilted by just one night's frost, fit for
nothing but vinegar. Therefore, look well to this, when you choose the
site of your vineyard, and rather pay five times the price for a
location free from frost, than for the richest farm along the so-called
creek bottoms, or worse still, sloughs of stagnant water.

GIRDLING THE VINE TO HASTEN MATURITY.

The practice of girdling to induce early ripening is supposed to have
been invented by Col. BUCHATT, of Metz, in 1745. He claimed for it that
it would also greatly improve the quality of the fruit, as well as
hasten maturity. That it accomplishes the latter, cannot be denied; it
also seems to increase the size of the berries, but I hardly think the
fruit can compare in flavor with a well developed bunch, ripened in the
natural way. As it may be of practical value to those who grow grapes
for the market, enabling them to supply their customers a week earlier
at least, and also