SECRETARY'S REPORT. 89 



experience have tried the foreign grape in all its varieties, again 

 and again, without success ; they have turned at last to our 

 native grape, and in some instances, met with eminent success. 

 The famous Catawba grape and the wine made from it have a 

 fame as wide as the Union ; and the [Isabella, though shorn of 

 its fame by reason of our bad seasons, is still reckoned by many 

 our best table grape. 



The problem before us is, whether grape culture can be made 

 profitable in Massachusetts. Can we succeed in growing grapes 

 which shall be good for the table and profitable for market ? 

 For we shall not be likely to go into grape growing without a 

 fair prospect of remuneration. Few of us can afford to grow 

 grapes, which require protection in the winter and costly modes 

 of culture in the summer, and which, perhaps, after all, give 

 but a meagre return for all our trouble and expense. 



I think we may answer this question in the affirmative. Not- 

 withstanding all the failures incident to mildew and rot, to 

 tenderness of constitution of many of the new grapes, to want 

 of experience, defect of soil or local difficulties, grape culture 

 is rapidly extending in Massachusetts, and if we can only find 

 grapes which will bear a certain degree of neglect, be prolific, 

 hardy — this is indispensable — and if we are not so unreasonable 

 as to require the excellence of the Black Hamburgh in addition 

 to these qualities, I believe grape growing is sure to become 

 one of the most profitable branches of the husbandry of our 

 good old State. 



I have said the Vitis Labrusca is comparatively indifferent to 

 soil and location, but I do not mean to say that the quality of 

 the fruit will not be affected by them. All experience shows 

 that fruits of all kinds are affected by soil and climate, and the 

 grape especially. The finest sherry wines are produced from a 

 soil which contains, according to Roxas Clementi, a Spanish 

 writer upon the wines of Andalusia, about seventy per cent, of 

 carbonate of lime, the remainder being clay with a little sand. 

 The sandy lands of the same department yield an inferior wine. 



The experience of grape growers in this country shows those 



soils containing lime to be best adapted to the grape, but, 



although the quality of grapes is certainly affected by different 



soils, good grapes may be grown on any soil which is light and 

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