GRAPE CULTURE. 



A PAPER READ AT THE ADRIAN MEETING BY ARTIMUS SIGLER, ESQ.^ 



OF THAT CITY. 



Mr. President, Ladies axd Gentlemek : — There has been a diversity 

 of opinious how to treat the viue, and make it produce a plenty of good fruit,^ 

 and a few words will not be amiss upon the best mode of cultivating the 

 foreign grape. 



CULTIYATIOX OF THE FOREIGN GRAPE. 



In preparing the soil before setting the vines, it has been my practice to 

 spade the earth about two feet deep, and pulverize well. If the soil is reason- 

 ably rich, I use no manure before setting. But after the vines have got a good 

 start I use manure freely on the surface of the earth, and keep putting it on 

 yearly, as it answers a two-fold purpose, for a mulch and a feeder. The treat- 

 ment of the vine the first year is to not let but one shoot grow, and pinch that 

 one off about the last of Augnst, so the wood will ripen up to stand our winter 

 better. About the last of ISTovember or the first of December, I take the vines 

 from the trellis, trim them, and bend them down and cover them from four to six 

 inches deep in the earth, and leave them in this condition until the first or mid- 

 dle of April. Then I uncover the vines and wash them off clean with soapsuds, 

 or use a force pump, which answers a very good purpose to wash the dirt off and 

 to moisten the buds so they will develop more evenly. This should be done 

 frequently until they are well leaved out. The second year I let two shoots 

 grow, and treat them in the same manner as the first year, and then to the 

 third year, when the anxious cultivator is looking to the opening of every bud 

 to see if he is to be rewarded for a portion of his toils, which he is sure of if 

 he performs his duty well. If you slight the grape vine it will remember you 

 at the harvest time with an indignant refusal to give you one single cluster of 

 well-developed fruit. So it is in every department of horticulture. The earlier 

 we learn this lesson, whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well, the 

 better. 



After the third year, you have encouraged the growth of the viue to its 

 fullest capacity in length, say eight or ten feet, which should never be allowed 

 to extend further than this, on any condition whatever, for fear of letting it 

 overbear. The over-indulgent cultivator is apt to spoil his fruit, and also the 

 future usefulness of the vine, by over-taxation. I have spoiled several of mine, 

 before I could learn this sad lesson. 



BEST VARIETIES OF NATIVE GRAPES. 



A few remarks upon the best varieties of native grapes for this latitude, 

 l>erhaps, would not be uninteresting to some. The first of all the native 



