If the grape-grower
has not capital to spare to buy wire, he can, if he has timber on his
land, split laths and nail them to the posts instead of wire. He can
layer his plants even the first summer, and thus raise a stock for
further planting; or dispose of them, as already mentioned in the
beginning of this work. Or he can lease a piece of land from some one
who wishes to have a vineyard planted on it, and who will furnish the
plants to him, besides the necessary capital for the first year or so.
I have contracted with several men without means in this manner,
furnished them a small house, the necessary plants, and paid them $150
the first two years, they giving me half the returns of the vineyards,
in plants and grapes; and they have become wealthy by such means. One
of my tenants has realized over $8,000 for his share the last season,
and will very likely realize the same amount next season.

And if he cannot afford to build a large cellar in the beginning, he
can also do with a small one, even the most common house cellar will do
through the winter, if it is only kept free from frost. One of our most
successful wine-growers here, commenced his operations with a simple
hole in the ground, dug under his house, and his first wine press was
merely a large beam, let into a tree, which acted as a lever upon the
grapes, with a press-bed, also of his own making. A few weeks ago the
same man sold his last year's crop of wine for over $9,000 in cash, and
has raised some $2,000 worth more in vines, cuttings, etc. Of course,
it is not advisable to keep the wine over summer in an indifferent
cellar, but during fermentation and the greater part of winter, it will
answer very well, and he can easily dispose of his wine, if good, as
soon as clear. Or he can dispose of his grapes at a fair price, to one
of his neighbors, or take them to market.

But there is another consideration, which I cannot urge too strongly
upon my readers, and which will do much to make grape-growing and
wine-making easy. It is the forming of grape colonies, of
grape-growers' villages. The advantages of such a colony will be easily
seen. If each one has a small piece of suitable land, (and he does not
need a large one to follow grape-growing), the neighbors can easily
assist each other in ploughing and sub-soiling; they will be able to do
with fewer work animals, as they can hitch together, and first prepare
the soil for one and then for the other; the rava