PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANNUAL MEETING. Ill 



Mr. Munson: Well, I make a living at it. My grapes pay me an 

 average of $100 per acre. 



Mr. Whitmire: Yes, but will it now pay to set new vineyards? 



Mr. Munson: I can only say that I keep making new settings. Wor- 

 den pays best, Niagara next; Moore is not very desirable. There is no 

 profit in keeping grapes longer than one month; there is too much waste, 

 and when grapes come in from New York prices are cut so that there is no 

 profit. Concord is about like Worden in point of profit. In supplying a 

 market through the season, it is desirable to have these several varieties. 

 As to fertilizers, I use stable manure at first, while the young vines are 

 growing, with bone meal and ashes later, when the bearing age arrives. I 

 am now spreading 200 bushels of ashes per acre. I do not lay down my 

 vines. Bone and ashes produce higher color and better and larger 

 bunches, of finer quality, than any other fertilizers of which I know, and 

 they cause the fruit to stay on the stems better. My soil is a strong clay 

 loam. Corn and potatoes are grown among the vines the first year. I 

 put vines on their trellises as soon as possible (upon the first wire the 

 second year) in order to get straight and strong vines which will in part 

 support themselves. I fasten them up strongly at first, to help in the 

 latter result. I leave but thirty to forty buds for the new crop. Many 

 growers seem to forget that all the fruit grows within eighteen inches of 

 of the buds, no matter if the vine goes on ten feet further I practice very 

 little summer pruning, only taking off the suckers. My vineyard is 

 already pruned for next season's crop; but pruning may be done any time 

 after the leaves fall. It must be completed before the sap starts in the 

 spring. I know of good grapes on land too light for general farming, but 

 on such soils they require more feeding. 



Mr. H. H. Hayes: Moore does not bear well. I have an acre of this 

 variety, but it does not yield a ton per year. 



Mr. Peaece said he knew of a man whose fence about his peach orchard 

 is a trellis of grapes, and on one occasion the trees saved the grapes from 

 frost. 



Mr. Munson said his line fences are grape trellises, and they pay at the 

 rate of one dollar per rod, instead of being an expense, like other fences. 



