2i6 State Horticultural Society. 



WHY IS IT NEGLECTED? 



"With all these good things belonging to the grape, why is it so 

 much neglected in commercial planting ? Nearly all the nurseries through- 

 out the country annually grow vast blocks of peach and apple trees, while 

 in few of them will any space be found devoted to grape vines. This is 

 an index of the demand for commercial planting. I will try to answer 

 this question briefly. 



"Probably the chief reason is that the people generally who engage 

 in fruit-growing are familiar with the growing of berries and tree fruits, 

 and know little regarding the vine, except as a half-ornamental arbor 

 vine in the yard. In confirmation of this theory, note how every French 

 horticulturist from the grape regions of France, takes to grape growing, 

 when he comes to this country, as naturally as a duck takes to the water. 

 Although he finds himself handicapped by the general failure of French 

 varieties in this country, and the prevailing prohibition laws, yet his 

 inherited love of the vine and its culture compels him to hunt out our 

 best American sorts and plant them, and make his casque of wine for 

 family use, if no more. 



"That which deters many is the contemplation of the considerable 

 first cost of establishing a vineyard, the purchase of 500 to 600 vines, 

 per acre, according to vigor of growth of, kind planted ; the thorough 

 preparation of ground, the trellising and the expert cultural work re- 

 quired in pruning and training, and the handling of the crop. 



"It is greatly handicapped, in most of the states, to the man who 

 would engage in wine-making, by prohibition laws, but outside the wine 

 business, I still hold that grape culture, in all the territory east of the 

 Rockies and south of forty to forty-two degrees latitude in the United 

 States, presents one of the most delightful and profitable fields in the 

 whole round of fruit-growing. There are very successful and profitable 

 varieties now in cultivation well adapted for every region, and the methods 

 of establishing, trellising, pruning and training, harvesting and market- 

 ing are so cheapened and simplified that anyone with little capital and 

 ordinary wit and judgment can readily and profitably engage in the 

 culture of the vine. True, it is, that viti-culture is the acme of the horti- 

 cultural art, when carried on in its best state, and for this reason, it 

 aflfords one with artistic tastes greater pleasure perhaps than any other 

 branch of fruit culture, and hence should be much more fostered than 

 it is." — American Fruits, Rochester, N. Y. 



