TWENTY FIFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 169 



comes I take the vines from their trellis and lay them on the ground, and 

 cover with leaves from two to four inches deep. Then the season's 

 work is ended. I think it is not necessary for me to give any directions 

 how to trim, as it is pretty generally understood. I will admit that the 

 worst fault is that I am likely to leave too much bearing w^ood, with the 

 result that the fruit does not ripen and is worthless. It might well be 

 compared to an old saying, "spare the rod and spoil the child." 



I made several visits to Detroit, almost specially to see Mr. E. B. Ward's 

 graperies, in order to see and learn all I could about growing this kind of 

 fruit. This was somewhere between thirty and thirty-live years ago. 

 He was a very extensive grower of this kind of fruit at that time. I 

 counted thirteen of these houses in one garden, and none of them less 

 than 120 to 1.30 feet in length, and all filled with from two to four rows of 

 grapevines, heavily laden with fruit. I found his gardener and intro- 

 duced myself to him, and informed him of my business, that it was to 

 see and learn how he took care of his graperies. I told him that I was 

 an amateur in the business and seeking knowledge, and I found him to be 

 very much a gentleman. He stopped his work and showed me through 

 all of these houses, and explained the different processes of his work, 

 for which I thanked him. I think is was the last time I was there, that 

 he told me that there had been a gentleman from New York to see Mr. 

 Ward, who was in some wav connected with the New York Tribune 

 office, and during his stay Mr. Ward invited him into his garden to see 

 his graperies. After he had been shown through all of them, the gen 

 tleman made the remark that if the fruit was in New York it would fetch 

 $500 for each of these houses, the total sum of |G,500. I was informed 

 when there that Mr. W^ard never sold a pound of grapes. He always 

 kept on hand a supply of baskets and would give his orders to have some 

 filled and sent every day to his friends, who were plentiful in those times. 

 His gardener told me that Mr. Ward would eat four or five pounds at a 

 meal, and this is the market he had for his grapes. This last statement 

 I will not vouch for, as I saw the man but once when I was there, but I 

 should not think he could devour so much fruit at a time from his dimen- 

 sions, although he was quite a portly gentleman. 



Some thirty-five years ago I first conceived the idea of building me a 

 glass house in order to raise some of the choicer varieties of grape, and 

 I went to work and built one about thirty feet in length and set vines in 

 it of the White and Black Hamburg varieties, and I was so well pleased 

 with the fruit that I continued to add to the house until it was 100 feet 

 in length. So, in all this space, I kept filling in with new varieties until 

 I had thirty-five where there should have been but three. But I have 

 been taking up and throwing away and grafting in the better varieties, 

 so that I have about one half that number left. I have been fairly suc- 

 cessful in raising these finer varieties of grape. I have frequently 

 raised clusters that weighed upward of three pounds. 



Now, why can not I be allowed the expression, after seeing them grow 

 and tasting them these many years, that they are the best fruit that our 

 great and good Father has seen fit to bestow on man? They bring 

 the highest price of any fruit in the known world. In proof of what I 

 have stated I will give you the wholesale and retail prices of these 

 grapes, as published in American Garden, between the years of 1S8G to 

 1892: 



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