222 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



agreeable habit of growth of viue aud fruit. The Lindley is long-jointed, with 

 stems very long and large, and bunches long and loose. The canes want all 

 the room you can give them, and do not branch much or turn out much fruit. 

 In the amount of fruit, the Merrimac, Wilder, and Aminia excell it among the 

 blacks, and Massassoit, Eequa, Salem, and No. 5 among the reds, and, farther- 

 more, as to flavor, I have more than once placed samples of these eight 

 varieties of Eogers's before a family of old and young persons, and in all cases 

 the Salem got the most votes, and generally the Eequa the next highest 

 number. Still there is little difference in quality or beauty between the 

 Massassoit, Eequa, and Lindley; either of them brings me in our home market 

 more than three times the price of the Concord, and there being but few of 

 these large red grapes in our market, the only question is who shall have them. 

 — S. B. Peck, Muskegon, Mich. 



THE lOXA GRAPE. 



Probably no grape was ever disseminated with more eclat than this, nor has 

 any one with the history of which I have been conversant created more disap- 

 pointment. Some of the reasons for this disappointment I shall attempt 

 herein to give — and, first, the claims set up for it were extravagant, as well as 

 the prices asked for it. It was never well adapted to general field culture, 

 being too tender and too uncertain about bearing. It only bears fair crops 

 in special local climates, special soils, and under special treatment. It 

 partakes too much of the fitfulness of its immediate progenitor, the Diana, and 

 does not jiossess the hardiness of its grandparent, the Catawba. It is true that 

 occasionally under ordinary treatment it will bear a tremendous crop, but then 

 it will be sure not to ripen perfectly. This shortcoming it takes honestly from 

 the Diana. The advice an experimenter gave to his neighbor was appropriate : 

 "If you are not a good nurse you had better let it alone." When all things 

 are right with it, it will yield a fruit in no way inferior to the claims set up 

 for it by its originator and his coadjutors, and any man who does not admire 

 its appearance and its flavor, maybe set down as possessing no taste for beauty, 

 or as having a depraved palate. 



The causes of failure have generally been from expecting too much ; some- 

 times from giving it too strong a soil, too much manure, not protecting it in 

 winter, and allowing it to bear too much fruit. On all these points it is very 

 sensitive. I speak from the standpoint of the Michigan fruit belt, the eastern 

 shore of Lake Michigan, in the latitude of Milwaukee, and where the Catawba 

 never ripens, the Isabella and Diana seldom, but where the Delaware, Concord, 

 Clinton, some of Eogers's, and Eumelan prosper — soil a lightish sand, but 

 evidently abounding in potash and lime. I should advise to prune early in the 

 fall, lay the vines down as flat as possible, lay a light covering of brush over 

 them (I use branches of asparagus), and lay pieces of wood as weights to keep 

 all in their places. I do not believe in covering with earth. The two past 

 winters mine have been left on the trellis. In the fall of 1880 I had a big 

 crop, but they were not well colored. The crop of 1881 was small ; many of 

 the canes were killed down, but the few I had were perfect, so much so that 

 on the twelfth of September I sent a sample, with samples of nine other kinds, 

 to the meeting of the American Pomological Society, at Boston , which exhi- 

 bition is said to have done high credit to our State. — S. B. Peck, Muskegon, 

 Mich, 



