TRANSACTIONS OF JACKSONVILLE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 265 



together with the library, have been placed in the reading-room for the 

 benefit of the public ; and from the managers we learn that both the 

 books and papers are read by many. 



A very successful exhibition was lield during the year ; one result of 

 which was to make the people better acquainted with the different varie- 

 ties of fruits, the comparative merits of each, and their adaptation to 

 cultivation in this climate. 



During the summer of 1874, Messrs. Cassell & Goar, enterprising 

 grocers of this place, offered a beautiful terra-cotta lawn vase as a premi- 

 um for the best preserved five pounds of grapes, to be exhibited at the 

 January meeting of the Society. Quite a number of entries were made, 

 and Mr. B. H. Chapman, of this city, was awarded the premium. He 

 exhibited the Concord, Clinton, Isabella and Ionia; all of which were 

 nearly as perfect in every particular as when taken from the vines. His 

 process of preserving them is a very simple and inexpensive one, and I 

 give it for the benefit of any who may wish to try it : "After carefully 

 cutting well-developed and well-ripened bunches from the vines, and 

 removing all imperfect fruit, if any, from the bunches, they were loosely 

 packed in six-gallon stone jars, without other material. The jars were 

 then sealed closely with paper, and placed in a cool situation until freez- 

 ing weather, when they were removed to the upper part of the house and 

 covered with loose material to prevent freezing ; where they remained 

 until wanted for exhibition." Grapes that had been kept in the ground 

 had lost much of their flavor, and had decayed considerably. 



Mr. Chapman is one of the most extensive and successful grape 

 growers in the county, having nearly five acres of vines in bearing. 



At this meeting he stated that he last year sold fifteen hundred 

 pounds of Concords from one-third of an acre of land. His vines are 

 set eight by ten feet apart, trained to wire trellis with posts forty feet 

 apart. He fruits from three to five canes, about five feet long, renewing 

 each year. He does but little summer pruning, thinking that a good 

 growth of foliage protects the fruit from the ravages of birds, and from 

 sun-scald, and that it is in other ways beneficial to the vine. 



After trying many different varieties, he had discarded a great num- 

 ber as worthless, many others as unprofitable, and gives the Concord the 

 first place in the list for profit, with Hartford, Ives, Delaware and Clin- 

 ton to complete the catalogue. Mr. Chapman had been attacked with 

 " grape on the brain," but he thinks a little experience will effect a cure 

 for most persons suffering from a like disease. 



