200 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



SO good a keeper, lie says,. '"With the Wilder, the market can't hurry me ; 

 it keeps as hjng as you choose; in fact, till it will bring double price/' thus 

 yielding 100 per cent over early market prices, though the Delaware sells better 

 during the short season it lasts in prime. Delaware ranks second, and Concord 

 third for market, thougli fourth for profit, — the lona being first, and none in 

 the whole list outyielding lona with him. lie finds the Delaware, close pruned, 

 an earlier grape than even the Hartford ; also, that for tlic latter, one-half the 

 care requisite for other grapes suffices. lie has tested there many other A"arie- 

 ties than the above, and has discarded as wortiilcss in his location, or his esti- 

 mation, the Croton, Creveling, Eumelan, Israella, Ives, Mclinda, Oporto, and 

 Walter; but would have for early a few Adirondack and Hartford. 



One hundred and fifty-eight Delawarcs, set 8 by 8 feet, trained to vertical 

 slats of latli nailed ten inches apart, yielded at two and one-half years from set- 

 ting, — with not a vine missing, — each ten pounds of choice grapes, sold at ten 

 cents a pound, paying back the full cost of the vineyard, labor, trellis, and all, 

 with ten per cent interest ou the wiu)le. Considers the Agawani as good in 

 (|uality as the Wilder, but not so prolific, and although he claims the lona, 

 Delaware, Rogers' 4 and 15 to be even better adapted to his place than Concord, 

 yet the latter seemed about as heavily loaded, and looked equally well every 

 Avay. For all kinds he trains four feet high to trellis of two rails, to vertical 

 slats of lath, preferring one foot apart, and running one and one-halt inches 

 below bottom bar to hold the canes hooked under when drawn down for win- 

 ter; would not lay them on the ground to Avater-soak under the dense melting 

 snows of their region. 



His Delawares had ::^0 loads of raw muck as top-dressing before planting, and 

 110 farther fertilizer for five years ; afterwards used one-half bushel of ashes 

 per vine broadcast. He cultivates from May to August 1st, but no later, 

 except once after fall pruning; using sulphur liberally, both as preventive and 

 cure of nearly all ills of leaf, plant, fruit or root, — rot, mildew or oidium, and 

 phylloxera, — believing that if tlie foliage be kept free, clean, bright, and 

 healthy, all those noisome spectres will and must keep aloof, finding no possi- 

 ble lodgment under so perfect a regimen. He doesn't wait for a visitation from 

 any one of tlieni, but forestalls the whole lot of tiieni by resorting to tlie sul- 

 phur blower, using simply a hand-bellows with a spout and funnel, and going 

 over again later any spots seeming to require it. This takes but 100 pounds 

 for the 2^ acres, costing only seven cents a pound; and a man goes over an 

 acre a day, up and down both sides of a row, about July 1st. 



Judge Kamsdell recommends for their region that all varieties be summer 

 pruned heavily, but never closer than within three leaves of the last bunch. 

 This vineyard at three years old had cost exactly 85 cents for each vine, and 

 had paid back just §1 each, thus paying full cost and interest on the land 

 occu})ied. Now as many may desire to know how the Judge makes a big crop 

 of lonas net 15 cents a pound, we here subjoin his method: From 10 pounds 

 of grapes he gets a gallon of wine, by adding to 3 gallons of juice 1 gallon of 

 water. Tliis musi be added on account of the tartaric acid. The gra})e sugar 

 thus reduced by water must be replaced 'by the 1 pound sugar per gallon ; the 

 wine selling at from $1 a bottle to $1.50 a gallon. 



N. E. Smith, of Ionia, entered two vineyards of Concords, and one of Dela- 

 warcs, the first one being 800 Concord vines set nine years, and trained to i)osts 

 or stakes originally 8x8 feet, but now in one-half the vineyard every alternate 

 row has been removed, leaving them 8xlG. He greatly prefers the latter, upon 



