MANURING THE VINEYARD. 133 



he thought they would suecced better four feet apart. I took 

 the German method and planted that spot with vines four feet 

 apart, because I supposed that, being on a barren hill, they 

 would not grow so rampant ; that we could hold them in place 

 easily. Let me say, that at one of our exhibitions, where I car- 

 ried some large handsome bunches to give to the guests, and 

 some smaller bunches from this hill-top, one of the guests, a 

 grape-grower of Middlesex, and a gentleman of long experience, 

 came to me and asked : " What is the grape in the other room? " 

 I said, " The Concord." " I don't mean the Concord," said he, 

 " but the smaller grape." " The Concord." " You needn't tell 

 me that it is the Concord ; it is a great deal better ; it is one of 

 your improved seedlings," he said at once. When I told him 

 the circumstances, he said : " Then I don't know anything about 

 grape-growing." I instance that to show that manure is not 

 necessary ; that the grape is so delicate a grower that it does 

 better where the soil is not manured ; if oxyde of iron is present 

 I should think it an advantage. That vineyard gave me bunches 

 half the size of the largest bunches from other vineyards, but 

 the quality was a great deal better, and the fruit makes a great 

 deal better quality of wine, corroborating the opinion of French 

 wine-growers, that you must not manure a vineyard. It is a 

 well-ascertained fact, that some vineyards in France which have 

 to be manured once in ten years, because of the circumstances 

 of the case, do not give the succeeding year their usual quality 

 of wine ; and that wine is either saved for distillation, or 

 brought to market without the name of the vineyard attached to 

 it, if it be one having a reputation. 



But although you can succeed so easily with a hardy and 

 vigorous grape, under ordinarily favorable circumstances of soil, 

 there are some which you cannot succeed with in that way. 

 Whatever habit the vine has of itself, whatever habit was born 

 into it, remains with it ; it is inflexible, obstinate and intracta- 

 ble in its habit. You must treat the vine, therefore, according 

 to the necessities of the case ; what I have said would be the 

 proper treatment for the Concord grape, or any other vigorous 

 growing grape, would be the worst method possible for the Dela- 

 ware, a slow-growing grape, a grape which requires high feed- 

 ing, and which you cannot succeed with unless you give it high 

 feeding. Some of the tender grapes that are grown here, those 



