132 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



grew with great vigor, bearing large bunches ; but the grapes 

 were not so good to eat as those grown on.a warm soil, and the 

 grower, a distinguished horticulturist of this State, told me he 

 could do nothing with them. That same gentleman has found 

 a method of growing and ripening the Concord, so that he took 

 the premium for the best specimens of that grape shown at the 

 last exhibition. You can, therefore, modify these adverse cir- 

 cumstances by cultivation and skill, and by the application of 

 those particular substances which are so necessary to the grape 

 in order to secure a crop. I speak specially of phosphate of 

 lime, ashes and sulphur, to some extent. If you manure exces- 

 sively, mildew is apt to ensue. I have heard horticulturists say 

 they did not care for mildew because they could kill it with 

 sulphur. But sulphur is powerless to prevent the recurrence of 

 mildew, and unless you want to be put to the trouble of apply- 

 ing sulphur every year, you will adopt the other method and 

 save your manure. I would advise you to manure at the time 

 of planting. To promote the formation of young roots manure 

 is indispensable. I should apply it as for the corn crop, at the 

 rate of about forty loads — ten cords — of good compost to the 

 acre, and plough in three or four inches deep. After that I 

 would never give any manure from the barn at all. Compost 

 would be,, better than manure, because less gross; and being 

 composted with vegetable matter, it would add to the soil — if 

 such a soil as I have recommended — that which the soil needs 

 while it is suitable to the grape. The grape is the daintiest 

 feeder of all growing plants. It abhors even vile odors, accord- 

 ing to an old writer ; and certain it is, that grapes grown on a 

 pure, sweet, dainty soil are of better quality than those which 

 grow upon coarse and heavily manured soil. I know that, abso- 

 lutely. I have a little vineyard on the top of a hill, which is a 

 gravelly loam, charged with some protoxyde of iron, which, 

 during the whole time it has been in my possession, for twenty- 

 nine years, has never had manure but once, and that was given 

 to the crop which preceded the planting of the grapes. I did 

 not, at the time of planting, believe that it was a good spot for 

 a vineyard ; but a German grape-grower, a gentleman of expe- 

 rience and culture, being at my place, recommended to me the 

 planting of some Concords four feet apart. The Concord being 

 a rampant grower, I had planted, before that, eight feet apart ; 



