864 Popular Editions of Station Bulletins of the 



stocks a medium to increase the range of cultivation of these 

 varieties. If Brilliant, Goff, Vergennes and Winchell could be 

 improved in bunch characteristics, they might become very valu- 

 able sorts and grafting has sometimes worked such improvement, 

 so these varieties were included. Jefferson and l^iagara are not 

 always hardy under New York conditions and if their growth 

 on other stocks could make them more resistant to cold it would 

 improve their standing as commercial varieties. Delaware was 

 used in the hope that its slow rate of growth might be overcome. 

 Catawba, grown on its own roots, is a little too late to succeed 

 in most seasons in New York, and Brighton deteriorates rapidly 

 after picking. If these qualities could be remedied by grafting, 

 most desirable results would be secured. 



The failure of vines during the first year 

 Progress was an inauspicious beginning and simi- 



of the lar misfortunes followed the experiment 



experiment. throughout its progress. During the sec- 

 ond year, 1903, seventeen more Riparia 

 Gloire stocks died, nine of St. George, nine of Clevener, and 

 twenty-nine on their own roots, while of the grafts, eight on the 

 Gloire died and forty-eight on the St. George but none on 

 Clevener. During the winter of 190.3--04, the weather was very 

 severe and in the spring and summer of the following season many 

 more vines died; of St. George, eighty-five; of Gloire, fifty-six, 

 and of those on their own roots, forty-eight. The effects of this 

 severe winter were remedied as far as possible by setting in new 

 vines, but the consequences of the freeze plainly extended through 

 several subsequent seasons as many of the vines lagged in gro%vth 

 and never reached their normal vigor. As a commercial venture 

 and, as later events proved, as an experimental one, it would have 

 been better to dig the vines up in 1904 and to begi^ anew. The 

 freeze, however, gives some indication of the relative hardiness of 

 the vines of these varieties on different stocks; as only 361/^ per 

 ct. died on St. George roots, while over 44 per ct. were lost on 

 Clevener and about 40 per ct. on Gloire or on their own roots. It 

 is possible that the deep-rooting habit of the St. George stock 



