30 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



or four wires stretched along these cross-bars to hold the permanent arms of 

 the vine, letting the new growth of cane and fruit hang from under and along 

 these wires. The advantages of this system are the saving of the usual summer 

 tying of growing canes; the covering and shading the ground and roots 

 during the hottest, dryest part of the season, producing more nearly the con- 

 ditions of forest growth ; and possibly a greater advantage in this pendant 

 manner of growth being better adapted to produce the large buds on which 

 the size of next yearns bunches depend. This is an important idea, and if, as 

 seems probable, the usual system of upright training of the growing canes 

 does not best develop the buds for next year's crop, it is unworthy of being so 

 generally used. On this point more careful study and experiment are required, 

 but the indications are stongly in favor of a drooping and pendant growth. 

 It seems to be quite well established that rank growing varieties should either 

 be set farther apart in the rows, or if set eight, ten, or twelve feet apart, 

 should be thinned by removing every other vine after becoming six to eight 

 years old. Our observing grower, Mr. J. Whittlesey, has quite fully demon- 

 strated that one Concord vine will produce more and better fruit when occu- 

 pying 50 feet of trellis than when left eight feet apart on the same length of 

 trellis. 



The enormous annual product and wide-spreading extent of the noted old 

 vine at Los Angeles, California, is a strong proof of this theory. The danger 

 from overbearing on old rank growing vines, I think has been overestimated. 

 Vines growing on soil rich enough to produce an aggregate growth of 100 to 

 200 feet of canes per year, may bear a proportionately large crop, while on 

 poor soil where a yearly growth of less than 50 feet is produced may very easily 

 be injured by overbearing. Among new varieties which seem worthy more 

 general trial, the"Worden" seems very promising — a worthy successor of its 

 parent Concord, and many claim will soon supersede this general favorite. The 

 Champion, a very early hardy grape of very medium quality, has endured the 

 past winter without injury in most places. The Brighton, very superior in 

 quality, and has proved very hardy and promising; the Owosso, a native of 

 our State ; the Lady, Martha, Prentiss, among white grapes, are all worth 

 knowing more about. 



WINE MAKING. 



From the earliest time a principal use of the grape has been to make from 

 its juice a beverage more or less intoxicating, to which man has given a vast 

 amount of study and pains to perfect, and to so combine and prepare as to pro- 

 duce the various qualities desired by the lovers of this beverage. A vast amount 

 of study has also been given to so imitate this pure wine, so called, and produce 

 a beverage of equal mercantile value without the use of grape juice ; and if we 

 may believe market reports and statistics, this has been an eminently success- 

 ful study. During the past few years the rapid spread of the Phylloxera in 

 France and the wine making regions of Europe has cut off the supply of grape 

 juice for wine making, and its ravages are likely to still farther reduce this 

 supply, and from California the same report comes that the little enemy is 

 making great inroads upon the wine supply. 



In this emergency several writers upon the grape, — notably Hussman, in his 

 lately published book, also a writer from Vineland, N. J., in the Philadelphia 

 press, have strongly advocated the favorable opportunity for the grape growers 

 of the United States to establish a new and desirable National industry, the 

 manufacture of wine, and a new National habit, the general use of wine. Not 



