266 ILLINOIS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



selections and good care apple trees will pay for themselves at eight years 

 from the root graft, and after that will pay twenty-five per cent, net on 

 their value at five dollars each, as often as corn will produce fifty bushels 

 per acre. 



Vineyards. — If the apple is President among fruits, the grape is Presi- 

 dent-ess, or Mrs. President, as you please, and, like some of our Presi- 

 dents' wives, who thought they were the President, the grape has by some 

 been placed at the head of the fruit list. 



The ground for the vineyard should be fitted about the same depth 

 as for apples, and planted, if for cultivation on stakes, about six by eight 

 feet apart, and to cultivate on trellis may be six by ten or twelve feet. 

 With me, the stakes have been most profitable. Clean cultivation, mel- 

 low soil, and not too rich in humus, are requisites for good, rich fruit. If 

 we are raising grapes for market, and don't care much for quality, only 

 for size, we may make more fruit by manuring, but it will be at the ex- 

 pense of the quality, and for wines, the fruit will not be as valuable. My 

 grapes give 94° to 100° by Oeschele's must-scale. At Herman, Missouri, 

 80° is a good showing. I have no doubt that the loess soils of our river 

 bluffs are as good soil for the grape, for wine, as can be found anywhere ; 

 and I go further, and say I have no doubt that the grape can be profit- 

 ably grown on any soil where corn can, and, at three cents per pound, 

 will pay better than the corn. Ten pounds of grapes have generally made 

 a gallon of pure juice for wine ; but as our Society is not in the wine busi- 

 ness, I shall say no more under this head, unless called for. Then I have 

 no secrets about wine-making, and will say that I have made and drank 

 wine for more than thirty years, and don't like whisky yet; nor has it 

 killed me. The old poet sang : 



" On foreign mountains may the sun refine 

 The grape's soft juice, and mellow it into wine." 



This has lost its point with us, for we can raise our own grapes, and I 

 would like to see every cottage, every dwelling, be it ever so grand, 'or 

 ever so humble, surrounded by this noble fruit, yielding luxury and health 

 alike to the rich and poor. 



The Concord and Clinton are the only varieties that are reliable for 

 the million, and these are mostly in cultivation. The first of these is 

 rather a transient grape, but, by carefully packing, may be kept a month 

 or two ; while the latter is the great wine grape of this locality. 



DISCUSSION UPON MR. SPAFFORU'S REPORT. 



A. Bryant, Sr. — I have never been able to discover the peculiar 

 influence of stock upon fruit which the report notices. I think the varie- 

 ties of Red June and Striped June, also the two distinct varieties of the 

 Snow Apple, are not caused by grafting. I have grafted the same sort 

 upon all sorts of stocks, but do not find the stock to influence the quality 

 of fruit. 



