150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and the Black Hamburg, that were only three years old last 

 winter, upon a four-foot trellis, that were not protected at all. 

 They went through the summer without mildew and the winter 

 without injury. But another effect of the cross-fertilization has 

 been very unfortunate. The vines were so thrifty that I thought 

 it was too bad to lose the wood until they bore fruit, and I took 

 cutting's from them which I set out last spring. When the 

 select vines from these cross-bred seedlings, upon which I 

 depended so much, began to show their clusters, I was still more 

 encouraged by the size of the clusters, which equalled the 

 foreign ; but every one of those seedlings had imperfect flowers 

 — conclusive proof of cross-fertilization. One of the Black 

 Hamburg's set fruit that grew to the size of pigeon berries, but 

 they did not come to anything. It has been a matter of exces- 

 sive labor and care, and what will come of it I cannot tell. I 

 have not found any fruit yet that I thought worth cultivating ; 

 but I think that is the only way of getting one. On sandy soil 

 the Concord is a good grape, but in our heavy, clayey soils it is 

 but a little improvement upon the native grape. By cross-ferti- 

 lization I think we shall obtain something good in fruit and 

 hardy in vine. We have two or three varieties, as I call them, 

 of the wild grape very abundant in our town. This pigeon 

 grape is really a weed on my premises, and in the lower grounds 

 we have the Labrusca and the fox grape. I think, however, as 

 the gentleman from Concord suggests, that it would be well to 

 have experiments carried on in every direction, and for every 

 gentleman to put in seed. I plant the seeds of all the good fruit 

 I cat ; and if every farmer would save the seeds of the fruit 

 which he eats at his table, and plant it in some out of the way 

 place, covering it for a time so that the young shoot shall not be 

 browsed by every calf that comes along, or trodden down by 

 the children, we should have grapes by-and-by as abundant as 

 grass. I have now twenty-four different crosses. I have the 

 native on the foreign, the foreign on the native ; the pigeon on 

 the foreign and the Labrusca on the foreign, and the reverse of 

 that ; the black on the white and the white on the black, to see 

 what influence that might have upon color. I have got 421 

 vines, every one of which is subjected to careful examination as 

 to mildew and everything about it ; so that, if a vine bears fruit 



