126 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



to wires stretched to stout locust-posts set firmly in the 

 ground, while some are allowed to run over an old stone wall 

 just as nature taught them. 



The way that most of my vines are managed is this : I cut 

 red-cedar posts about ten feet long, and trim off the branches 

 from six inches to three feet from the main stem. These 

 posts I set from two and a half to three feet into the ground, 

 and about six by ten feet apart. To each post I set one vine. 

 I have learned that vines trained in this way are less trouble 

 to manage and seem to do better in every way, being less 

 liable to mildew and disease, the air circulates freely among 

 them and the sun's rays will strike nearly every part. The 

 consequence is that better fruit and larger clusters are 

 obtained. 



If I trim my vines, I generally do the most of it in the fall, 

 sometime at the last of October or November ; but I always 

 cut off any offending branch when I feel disposed at any sea- 

 son of the year, and have never seen any bad efiects from 

 bleeding after severing a branch. 



There are some two hundred vines on my premises, and as 

 fast as one dies out or is pulled up I generally set out another, 

 usually a year old layer. I have now in bearing condition, 

 the Concord, Ives' seedling, lona, Dracut Amber, Clinton, 

 Hartford Prolific, Delaware, Taylor's Bullet, Elsingburg, 

 Black Hawk, Allen's Hybrid, and the following of Rogers' 

 Hybrids Nos. 1, 3, 9, 13, 15, 19, 22, 39, 41, 43, 44, 33, 

 besides several seedlings of native grapes, which are rather 

 poor and foxy, having only the desirable qualities of early 

 ripening and the hardiness and vigor of an oak. 



It is hard to decide which of the varieties is best suited 

 for our climate ; some years one kind will lead all others, while 

 in other years it will fiill far in the rear. Generally speaking, 

 those varieties which are the hardiest in wood and best to 

 ripen up the buds early in the ftdl, and the fruit also, have 

 this fatal habit of giving only very poor flavored berries ; 

 while those of the rich perfume and sugary flavor are apt to 

 be tender in wood and liable to be attacked by mildew, and 

 are so late in ripening their fruit that it is almost impossible 

 to get any fit for the table. 



Rogers' seedlings are, I am sorry to say, rather too tender 



