PROCEEDINGS OF THE SUMMER MEETING 



MY EXPERIENCE WITH FOREIGN GRAPES. 

 BY MR. F. \V. SURDAN OF MATTAWAN. 



My first experience with foreign grapes was in 1892, wlien I imported 

 from California fifty Tliompson's Seedless raisin grapes, from J. P. 

 Onstott of Yuba City; and twenty-six others, five each of Muscat of 

 Alexandria, Muscatello Gordo Blanco, and Largo Bloom, raisin varieties, 

 five White Frontignan, three Emperors, two Flame Tokays, one Golden 

 Chasselas, these from California Nursery company, Niles, Alameda 

 county. They were good stock, and all grew; but the spring was very 

 wet into June, and they were drenched nearly every day. Later it 

 came oft" hot, then dry; when, finding the clouds had stopped to rest, 

 I turned in with the watering-pot and gave them a heavy shower once 

 per week, right over the foliage, at the most convenient hour of the day. 

 By September the leaves were gray and yellow with mildew. It was a 

 severe attack, the first and last of mildew of any importance thus far; 

 but it taught me a lesson, never to wet the leaves during hot sunshine. 



Just before hard freezing weather, about the middle of November, 

 I bent down the vines carefully and covered them with two or three 

 inches of earth. My impression at the time was that a little straw next 

 to the vines would be better; yet, not knowing why, I covered them with 

 earth only. In the spring I learned why (another important lesson) : 

 the wood and bark were green and fresh up to the point of freezing back 

 in autumn, but by contact with earth the buds had rotted. 



All but one of the vines started from the bottom, making fair but 

 varying growth, Thompson's outdoing the others. Cutting a branch 

 three inches in length, containing two buds, from a Muscatello just 

 bursting into leaf, I planted it, bottom end up, beside the one dead vine. 

 Finding it was doing well, I placed it right end up, watered it, and it 

 grew into a nice, thrifty vine two or three years old, then died — from 

 excessive drouth, probably. 



I also received from California, and planted, twenty cuttings each of 

 Eose of Chili, Muscat, and Malaga. About two thirds of these grew a 

 little, when the grasshoppers stripped them of leaves and destroyed 

 nearly all. 



Having set more vines of the first-named varieties, adding Malaga 

 and Rose of Chili, again in November I covered the vines of Muscatello. 

 Muscat, Largo Bloom, Malaga, etc., wrapping first a handful of straw 

 around each vine, leaving the Thompsons, for trial, uncovered. Examin- 

 ing in winter, they appeared all right until the coldest weather. In 

 the spring all the Thompsons were found to be killed back except two 

 long vines lying close to the ground, which leaved out at the tips. The 

 varieties covered were saved, buds and all. except the tips which were 

 killed by early freezing. 



When in full leaf, with six to twelve inches of new growth, and 

 many clusters on old vines nearly in bloom, our unusuallv severe late 

 frost killed every blossom, leaf, and vine nearly back to old wood of the 

 foreigners, and nearly all of twenty native varieties I have. A month 



