222 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the way through for the want of something they did not get 

 the year before. That was something new to me : for I sup- 

 posed, that, when they began to grow and get new sap the 

 present season, they would make up for it ; but they did not. 

 Many clusters had stems that gained but little substance 

 during the season. In the autumn they wilted, and the ber- 

 ries dropped off from the stalk very'easily. This seems to me 

 to be the explanation. To sustain this idea, I will say that 

 the worst failure I knew this year was that of a gentleman in 

 the same city where I live, who is on a light soil that dries up 

 worse than mine does. Mine is very strong, deep, loam, that 

 has produced ninet}^ bushels of corn to the acre ; but his vine- 

 yard is on light land, that suffers from drought. His whole 

 crop on three-quarters of an acre was put into a bushel-basket. 

 My crop was about one-eighth of what I got last year in quan- 

 tity. That confirms my idea. Then there are two or three 

 other persons who grow crops on soil of the same character 

 as mine, and they have had approximately the same results. 

 One neighbor that I have, when I told him in September, 

 1877, that my berries did not appear to color, said, " Mine 

 do, and my vines do not look as though they had been 

 troubled for want of moisture." His evidently stood that 

 drought better than mine ; and the result was, this year he got 

 about half a crop where I got about one-eighth. Then there 

 is another case in the same locality, of a gentleman who has a 

 vineyard on a flat piece of land near the river, and has stand- 

 ing water within four feet of the surface. His grape-vines 

 yielded just as good a crop this year as they ever did. That 

 goes to sustain the same theory : he had plenty of moisture 

 to carry his crop in 1877. So far as I have heard from other 

 places, nothing is opposed to the theory ; and hence [ shall 

 hold it until it is contradicted, and no longer. If there is 

 an}'' gentleman here who has any facts that he can state* in 

 contradiction or confirmation of this theory, I should be glad 

 to hear them. 



Mr. Cheever. I am not a grape- culturist : I only grow 

 for home use. I have two vines that stand in the vicinity 

 of a sink-drain, and those two vines were the only vines that 

 produced half a dozen bunches this year. \ 



Dr. Fisher. Another thing. I think the pears were in 

 the same box. I think that is the explanation of the fact 



