ANNUAL MEETING AT NEVADA. 287 



THE SELECTION OF VARIETIES. 



The time has come when the Concord cannot be made ahnost the 

 exclusive variety. While I do not wish to pluck one leaf from the crown 

 oflaurels so justly won by this noble grape, a grape which has responded 

 alike to the care of the vineyardist, and in a measure to the neglect of 

 the average planter; still facts are stubborn things. The people demand 

 a better grape. I have watched the market for years, and there is no 

 doubt but on an average, the Delaware grape will sell for double on the 

 market what the Concord will. Now, although the Concord will yield 

 much more than the Delaware, still when we take into consideration cost 

 of shipping, packing, commission, etc., it is a question if the Delaware is 

 not the more profitablegrape to raise for market. I mention these two 

 grapes because of their ripening so near the same time. But we, here in 

 Southwest Missouri need to look still father into this matter. We have 

 grapes equal in quality and from ten to twenty days earlier than Con- 

 cord which should receive our special attention, because we can get them 

 into a market that is not over supplied as we generally find it later on. 

 Then again we have varieties, many of them very much superior in 

 quality to the Concord, which ripen from two to five weeks later. 



The practical grape grower will look well into this branch of the 

 subject if he would grow grapes at a profit. There is one matter I wish 

 to call your attention to; and it is a matter, if looked at seriously, that 

 becomes. 



A HUMILIATION. 



At this time and for weeks past, a visit to any of our grocers in the 

 city, would find grapes for sale grown hundreds of miles north in Ohio 

 and New York, Concord grapes for which our people pay eight to ten 

 cents per pound. Now I wish to assert one thing, and I do so without 

 fear of successful contradiction, and yet it is contrary to the general im- 

 pression held in this community, and that is that there is not one single 

 grape mentioned in any catalogue in the United States that cannot be 

 grown to as great perfection as regards bunch and berry, right here in 

 Vernon county, Missouri, as in any county in the State of New York or 

 any other State; and as regards quality of the fruit, it is well known that 

 any of our southern grown fruit is richer and better than that grown 

 where they have not so much warm sunshine as we are blessed with in 

 this latitude. This is a carrying of coals to New Castle with a ven- 

 geance, particularly when we have most excellent varieties of grapes, 



