THE GRAPE-CROP FAILED. 221 



crop evidently was not there. Why was it not there ? For 

 this reason : the grape-crop is always made the year before. 

 My crop for 1879 is all piled up in my vineyard to-day. 

 Every cluster and every berry that I am to have then is indi- 

 cated, and is there in embryo, at this time ; and next spring 

 is simply going to develop what has been stored up, and made 

 ready for development. Now, we must certainly go back as 

 far as the year previous to find out what the trouble was. I 

 think so much is certain. "Well, with me, the circumstances 

 were just these (and on these circumstances I made a little 

 theory, and I have applied every case I have heard of to that 

 theory, and so far they fit pretty well) : the month of 

 September, 1877, was exceedingly dry; not only was the 

 ground parched, but for some weeks the humidity of the 

 atmosphere had been very low. We may have either of 

 these conditions alone, without plants suffering badly; but 

 they both existed together in this case, and were worse about 

 the middle of September. When the grapes were ripening, 

 there was from a week to f'^n days that the berries did not 

 color at all. The leaves were limp. The whole vineyard had 

 a sort of heated appearance : it was evidently being starved 

 for the want of moisture. By and by there came a little 

 rain, and they caught up the thread of their work, and went 

 on ripening slowly. I could tell by the show of color that 

 they stood still for a week or ten days. They did not get 

 water enough to amount to much of any thing until the 4th 

 of October, which was too late to be of any use in the ripen- 

 ing process. I think that the buds were not matured : they 

 were starved; and, when they opened last spring, I found 

 this peculiarity that I never saw before : the buds would 

 open, and grow four or five leaves, and run out at the end. 

 They did not grow continuously, as they ordinarily do : they 

 greV four or five leaves and then stopped, as if they had used 

 all the material stored up the previous year, and that was all 

 they could do. When they opened their clusters, they showed 

 the same thing : there was starvation. There were very few 

 berries in embryo laid up, and many of those were very weak ; 

 the set was very imperfect : and that condition continued 

 through the whole season. And although we usually, when 

 the crop is light, expect the berries will be very large and 

 fine, the berries were also very small : they were starved al] 



