Communications. 307 



Experiments with Grape Vines. — The Concord grape vines 

 which served in the experiments were planted in 1869 upon for- 

 mer pasture land. No fertilizer had been applied in the new 

 vineyard excepting wood ashes but once, in 1871, previous to my 

 investigation. 



In 1873 several plats containing three rows of Concord vines, 

 six in each row, were set apart in a suitable locality for the appli- 

 cation of the special fertilizer. Directly adjoining were planted, 

 at a similar distance from the Concord vines, corresponding every 

 way with the arrangement of the former, in each plat, twelve 

 wild-growing specimens of the Vilis Lahrusca (wild blue grape), 

 taking care at that time that a part of the wild grape vine re- 

 mained in its original place, to secure the identity of variety, etCv 



The original plant was left to its natural resources, and the 

 transplanted part treated, in common with the Concord vines, with 

 the following fertilizers per acre: four hundred and fifty pounds 

 of dissolved bone-black, containing twelve per cent, of soluble 

 phosphoric acid, and one hundred and eighty pounds of nitrate 

 of potash, containing forty-five per cent, of potassium oxide, and 

 thirteen per cent, of nitrogen : or fifty-two pounds of soluble 

 phosphoric acid, eighty-one pounds of potassium oxide, and 

 twenty-three pounds of nitrogen. One-half of the fertilizer was 

 applied in the fall, the other half early in the spring. 



The examination of the grapes from fertilized and unfertilized 

 localities began three years after the first treatment of the various 

 plats, and only the fruits of a corresponding state of ripeness 

 served for the tests. The berries, freed from the stems, furnished 

 the ash constituents. The juice of the entire grape was tested 

 for grape sugar only. 



The results of all ash analyses contained in these pages, in- 

 cluding grape, strawberry, and peach, are reported here only with 

 reference to five prominent constituents : Potassa, Lime, Mag- 

 nesia, Iron, and Phosphoric acid. Other constituents of the 

 ashes, as soda, silica, etc., although quantitatively determined, 

 are for the present excluded from the discussion. The various 

 subsequent analytical statements do, therefore, not represent the 

 composition of the entire ash, but refer to the relative proportions 



