HORTICULTURAL SUGGESTIONS AND MEMORANDA. 



115 



the inside of the shell of the stone, and 

 beginning to feed evidently on the meat of 

 the stone. This maggot was probably put 

 into the grape while near the bloom, as 

 the pea bug is put into the pea. It was in 

 a grape affected with the brown or stone 

 ret. But on further examination I found 

 no more, and supposed this a solitary case, 

 and not the cause of the rot ; though I must 

 confess it has aroused my suspicions, and 

 I mention it to induce thorough microscopic 

 examination. 



That the rot is not occasioned by the 

 puncture of any insect at the time it oc- 

 curs, may be proved in this way: Puncture 

 any number of grapes with a pin, or slit 

 them with a knife, and it will not harm 

 them. Indeed, those I punctured, in my 

 experiments this year, escaped the rot until 

 all the others on the same branch, and 

 even on the same bunch, had perished. 

 Such in general is the disease. 



As to remedies, I have applied ashes, 

 sulphur, lime, iron, bone-dust, sulphate of 

 iron, oxide of iron, manure of all sorts, &c. 

 &c, with various modes of training and 

 pruning, to no effect. 



Paving the ground with brick 18 inches 

 below the surface, and filling in plentifully 

 with brickbats, limestone, old bones, old 

 shoes, chip manure, &c, is undoubtedly 

 the best remedy that has yet been found ; 

 but it is quite expensive. Paving the sur- 

 face, or coping it with boards, to shut off 

 the superabundant rain has been recom- 

 mended, but is not a specific. Suffering 

 the vines to run at large in high trees is 

 not always effectual, if ever, when the vine 

 becomes old. Two facts have have been 

 reported to me during the past season wor- 

 thy of record, or at least of notice. 



One gentleman in Bond county, Illinois, 

 allows his grape-vines to grow at random, in 

 a stiff" blue grass sod, on dry ground, and af- 



firms that his grapes never rot, while all 

 his neighbor's do rot, and still he has, he 

 says, fine crops. 



Another gentleman, in the heart of the 

 city of St. Louis, has old Catawba and Isa- 

 bella vines, trained on an arbor frame 16 

 feet high. He gives them a severe spring 

 pruning, but no summer ■pruning, and ga- 

 thers bushels every year without fail, while 

 his neighbors, on a similar clay soil, a lit- 

 tle out of the city, find that theirs all rot 

 annually. I have thought that the im- 

 mense amount of coal burned in the city, 

 might affect his grapes. Do grapes rot in 

 Pittsburgh, or anywhere near it? Does 

 any one know ? For if so, no smoke this 

 side of the bottomless pit will save them. 



However, I will try the high training, 

 the coal smoke, and the blue grass sod, 

 and the gypsum, too, if any gentleman 

 will send me a barrel — (for the west ab- 

 hors imported manure worse than nature 

 does a vacuum,) each under distinct vines, 

 next year, and report accordingly. 



The philosophy of the blue grass sod, if 

 true, is this: Absorption of wet and ex- 

 clusion of heat, while the rich soil here 

 still gives food enough to the vine. But I 

 cannot believe in this treatment, though it 

 has doubtless succeeded in the single case 

 alluded to ; and still, pears do far better in 

 such a sward, in our soil, than anywhere 

 else, beyond all doubt. 



I have thus indicated all which I thought 

 would tend to set your intelligent readers 

 to thinking, experimenting, and writing on 

 the subject, — hoping that something may 

 come to the relief of the prairies ; for it is 

 now quite certain, I think, that neither the 

 Ohio vine culture, with all its beauty and 

 science, nor indeed any other known cul- 

 ture, can be of any practical use to us, sim- 

 ply on account of this fatal rot, while all 

 else does admirably, even without care or 



