WINTER MEETING. 219' 



large, sweet, juicy berries, either red or black in color, and of good flavor, and 

 agreeable, fine taste. Medium and late kinds, as well as for shipping, should be of 

 large, uniform bunches, either white, red or black, large berries, with bloom sweet, 

 juicy, rich, akin tough, with an agreeable, fine taste. 



Plant one-year old vines with a profusion of fine, yellow roots ; vigorous 

 grower ; hardy, healthy and very productive ; bunch large, showy, rather loose ; 

 berries large ; skin thin, tough; pulp tender, sweet, juicy, and free from rot and 

 mildew, or near so. There are many of the new kinds that would answer the de- 

 sired wants, but who could or would furnish rooted vines of such a description to 

 be in reach of a poor grape-grower ? 



Glancing over the price list of Bush, Son & Meissner, there are only a few 

 kinds of these newer varietios mentioned, and they are rated at such a high price 

 as to be only in the reach of a millionaire. Now what should the poor vineyardist 

 plant? Concord, Catawba, Delaware, Niagara are in our markets, and are found 

 in the markets of our remotest inland towns as well as in the city markets at prices 

 in the reach of the poor man, and we wonder how it is they are so cheap, having 

 been raised in the states of New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and shipped a thou- 

 sand miles and over ; should It be possible that there is any margin left for the pro- 

 ducers? 



On page 371, volume 46, " Colman's Rural World," you may find that grape- 

 growing pays; yes, Concord, which holds its place yet, like the Ben Davis apple or 

 the Crescent strawberry, in spite of their gross opposition. 



Concord grapes we want, was the answer of customers from abroad when I 

 offered them Nortons. And in my long career of grape-growing in Missouri I 

 never had as many calls from outside, from Texas in the south and Chicago in the 

 north, for grapes, as this past season, but they were not to be had in our locality; 

 those who had good crops disposed of them in the home market and others pre- 

 ferred to make them into wine, while the majority of grape- growers did not attend 

 to their vineyards, and, consequeutly, had nothing for their own family use nor 

 to sell. We sold Concords from three to five cents per pound, and Nortons and 

 Goethe for five cents per pound. 



Once my friend C. C. Bell said : "There is no money in grapes;" the season 

 of 1893 demonstrated that there was no money in apples, at least not in Missouri. 



Mr. Herman Jaeger says, and everyone who has done his duty to his grape- 

 vines corroborates him, that with the use of copper salts we can raise the old 

 varieties of grapes again to be profitable. 



There has been a time when a vineyard was a heavy incumbrance and a nui- 

 sance to its owner, and it is so yet for those who expect a crop of fruit from their 

 vines by simply looking at them. 



We must be diligent ; we must use the remedies recommended and obey the 

 teachings of scientific men, who have found by profound studies and repeated 

 experiments the causes of grape disease, and accordingly applied the remedies to 

 prevent the parasitic growth. 



It was known to the grain farmers of hundreds of years ago that copper vit- 

 riol or blue-stone is a preventive of smut in wheat. They treated their seed grain 

 with a solution of that, and their reward was a crop of wheat free of smut. 



And smut is a fungus as well as phoma or perenospera on the grape-vines 

 (black rot tnd mildews). Prof. Millardet, of Bordeaux, France, is the man to 

 whom the viticulturist is indebted for having first recommended the use of sul- 

 phate of copper and lime in a liquid form, now commonly known as Bordeaux 

 mixture. 



