258 TRANSACTIONS OP THE HORTICULTURAL ^ 



The above named sorts are all large berries and great yielders of 

 abundance of berries, and with me are always large and perfect 

 when not injured by frost. The Great-Pacific, mentioned in the list 

 I recommended, is a seedling grown by rae. I have fruited it for 

 five seasons past, and it has gone way ahead of anything else I ever 

 had on my grounds. If I tell you that 1 have seen the fruit lay in 

 one continuous pile around the Great-Pacific you would not credit 

 it The plants did not have any winter protection. It is a berry the 

 shape of the Wilson, but a much larger berry, and the plant a more 

 rampant one. It surpasses the Crescent in making runners and pro- 

 ducing young plants and fruit. It must be well fertilized and you 

 will get an abundance of nice large berries. I have chosen thirteen 

 good berries out of five hundred seedlings and the Great-Pacific is 

 one of them. 



The grape is the oldest fruit we have any knowledge of, it being 

 almost the first fruit that was used in ancient times. 



There is an almost innumerable variety, but very few kinds that 

 are sufficiently hardy, at the present day, to withstand our cold and 

 rigorous climate. First, we will take our natives ; they fail in many 

 cases, and are frozen back to the main vine, and some are killed 

 outright. 



As we understand, the Concord has been grown from seed by 

 careful selection from the best wild grapes of the East, It is about 

 the third generation from our wild native Fox grape. There has 

 been great improvement since the Concord was first introduced. 

 Since that we have the Delaware, Hartford and Diana, and still later 

 on we have the Martha, a white and very sweet grape, and equally 

 as hardy as the Concord. 



My vineyard was planted twenty-five years ago, when grape 

 blight, rust and grape rot were unknown in our part of the country. 

 But, alas ! to-day we are in the same boat with our brethren in other 

 parts of the country where this trouble has existed for a number of 

 years. Why is it? 



Do the vines take the proper ingredients from the soil to pro- 

 duce a sound and healthy growth of plants and fruit, and do we 

 neglect to put back and supply the soil with the proper food to pro- 

 duce both healthy vines and sound fruit? This blight and rot must 

 be a contagious disease, and is brought about as many other things 

 are in the shape of disease. If we were on the look-out, and cut 

 ofiP and burned every leaf and twig that showed any sign of dis- 

 ease in any form, I think we would not be very much troubled by 

 rot and blight. 



When the rot and blight once gets into a vineyard, I think it 

 would be better to root it out entirely than to be bothered by rot 

 every year. In such cases only very dry weather will prevent the 

 occurrence of its return for only the time being. The years of 1886 



