Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1890 — WILD-GRAPE VINES. [ARTICLE]

WILD - GRAPE VINES.

They Orow Profusely In California and Sometimes Cover the Highest Trees. ~ A Niles, Cat, correspondent of the Rural New Yorker, writes: The Vitis Culifornica, which is being used for a resistant stock on which to graft many varieties, is one of the most picturesque and beautiful objects on the California ' river bottoms and in the ravines. Very few writers have spoken of it and very few tourists ever get a glimpse of the grape in its native haunts, because it is seldom seen in the cultivated valleys or near the highways of travel. It ! grows on the Lagunitas, the Alameda, , the Sonoma, and the Sacramento, along the Salinas, San Joaquin and Russian rivers. It is at its best in central and northern California. One of the most beautiful examples ol wild grape arbors in the state is to be seen along the Rio Chico Creek,, on General Bidwell’s farm in Butte county. Here for fifteen miles the trees on the banks are covered with grapevines, iu vast domes, spires, arches, arbors and columns.—^Thesc- magnificent vines creep up banks and cover piles ol Btonoß aiid ledges es roek. “ Tlinsyf cross from tree to tree, in leafy bridges. When in bloom they scent the air for miles. In autumn so abundant are the small purple clusters that’ they seem to color the whole forest. Aftc\ the leaves and fruit have fallen, the vines are still worth admiring study, for they reveal their labyrinthian intricacies and are the delight of artists and photographers even more than during their leafy luxuriance in summer. The vines seem to have little choice about the trees they clamber' over. The sycamores and alders, I white oaks and maples are all loaded with wild grapes that in a few years ' climb to the lops and trail back in a thousand graceful and flowing curves. | In the Vaca Valley some of these large ! vines have been grafted to muscats and black moroccos, with entire success.