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4W ISABEUA GUArK CULTURE. 



FACTS IN ISABELLA GKATE CULTURE. 



BY E. A. McKAY, NAPLES, N. T. 



Some time ago, you may remember, you invited me to communicate to you such 

 facts for publication as I might have met with in grape culture that would be likely 

 to be of interest to the public. I had then recently planted one acre of IsahcUa Crape 

 vines, pretty nearly after the manner you had advised in the columns of the Genesee 

 Farmer. 



The piece of ground planted is twenty rods in length by eight in width, and was 

 planted five years ago last spring, in the following manner : About the first of May I 

 gave the land, which is a gravelly loam, a very deep plowing — as deep as possible 

 without the aid of a subsoil plow. I then measured it off into eight strips, or lands, 

 running lengthwise, their direction being from north to south, 15 deg. east, and plowed 

 these lands separately — leaving the dead furrow in the center of each, designating the 

 places for the rows — breaking up the yellow subsoil by repeated plowings through the 

 center of each to the depth of nearly two feet. I then went into these trenches with 

 a stout team and scraper, and excavated holes a rod apart, still deeper than I had 

 plowed, about six feet wide and eight feet in length, leaving the subsoil taken from 

 them in the intervening spaces. 



All this time I had my eye upon a drove of cattle (some eighty head), which 

 had died in this town the previous March and April, while performing a pilgrimage 

 from the far West to the New York market. These I procured of the proprietor, and 

 had them cut into pieces of convenient size, and hauled to my field and placed in the 

 holes prepared for their reception. There being one hundred and sixty holes, a half 

 of a carcass was placed in each. This being done, the holes were filled about half full 

 of good surface soil ; upon this I distributed, as equally as possible among all the 

 holes, sixteen heavy loads of decayed leather shavings, from a currier's shop — the 

 accumulation, as I was informed, of about twenty years. A sufficient quantity of 

 surface soil was thrown upon these, and thoroughly incorporated with them, to fill the 

 holes rather more than level with the surface of the ground. Now, about a bushel of 

 well-rotted stable manure, taken from under a stable, well mixed with about the same 

 quantity of charcoal dust, from an old coal pit, was spaded into each place designated 

 for the reception of a vine. 



I then procured, of Ellwaxger & Barry, good, strong, two year old vines, with 

 which I planted one-half of this ground ; and the other half 1 planted with layers of 

 the previous year's growth, without a particle of top to any of them — each consisting 

 simply of a short section of a vine of the previous year's growth, with one bud and a 

 few small roots attached to it. 



These vines have had no other manuring since they were thus planted, excepting 

 about two bushels of leached ashes forked in around each vine last season, and about 

 !^ one quart of plaster applied to each the season before. They are trained on tell 

 jj^ running from north to south, eight feet high, made of chestnut posts (for w 



