STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 139 



If now we review the relation of the grape to these abnormal states 

 of the weather — abnormal at least in comparison with the climate 

 of India and Greece, and Peru, we shall find it suffering almost from 

 year to year in a greater or less degree. These climatic injuries 

 accumulate in the experience of the" same individual vine. We 

 shall also find that the early expanding grape is cut off* by spring 

 frosts, while frequently the autumnal growth is suddenly checked 

 by the same means. Then follows a long winter, whose cold it 

 seldom meets with the same state of maturity that characterizes 

 the wood of the apple and the plum. Is it strange, then, that 

 the grape declines under such a severity of experience ? The 

 peach, though having many points of similarity to the grape, dif- 

 fers from it advantageously to itself in the fact, that its foliage 

 does not fear a moderate frost either in the spring or fall, although 

 the general influence of irregular weather upon it and the grape 

 is similar. 



The general healthiness of our native grapes, growing under 

 the same conditions of climate as the foreign varieties, should not 

 be cited in opposition to the preceding argument; for 



First — The native grape has a hardier constitution, derived 

 from our own climate. 



Secondly. — Nature usually locates it in valleys and beside 

 streams, in positions measurably sheltered. 



Thirdly — The native grape is not cultivated, and so is not forced 

 into an early spring development, nor does its growth continue 

 late in the fall. Hence, in both cases it is less exposed to frost 

 while in an actively growing state. 



Fourthly — Nature shelters the wild grape from the intense heat 

 of the sun. Its principal vines are usually shaded. Its roots are 

 deeply mulched by grass, weeds and shrubs, and especially by the 

 falling leaves and branches cast off* by itself and the forest around 

 it. Thus it is not so intensely stimulated as the cultivated grape 

 standing in cultivated grounds deeply stirred, and kept clean and 

 naked about its roots. The wild grape always suff*ers when trans- 

 fered into our gardens, and cultivated as the foreign sorts usually 

 are. Those who have eaten the wild grape on the banks of the 

 Hudson, cannot but have noticed its small wiry branches in con- 

 trast with the large, brittle, spongy growth of our cultivated sorts; 



