GEAPE CULTURE. 151 



SELECTION OF VINEYARD SITES IN THE ATLANTIC STATES AND PREPARATION 



OF SOIL. 



It may be noticed in various parts of the Atlantic States, and in the Missis- 

 sippi valley, that vine growers are mostly in the practice of selecting rich land 

 for their vineyards, and trenching this very deeply before planting their vines. 

 This induces a rapid growth of wood, which is feeble, and subject to injury by 

 rost. 



In a country where periodical rains can be depended on there is scarcely any 

 necessity for providing for the retention of water about the roots of the vine, 

 and the practice of digging deep trenches and miniature wells in which to plant 

 the vine, is to provide it with subterranean acqueducts and reservoirs where 

 healthy action in the root is impossible under such a condition. Experience 

 teaches that the vine, in order to be healthy, should be short-jointed, and of a 

 *' stocky" habit; a condition which it is difiicult to attain on a deep and stirau- 

 lating soil. 



Most writers on vine culture recommend planting vineyards on a southern 

 and eastern aspect. Such situations are very favorable in seasons exempt from 

 heated terms ; but when these occur, it will be found that a vineyard having a 

 northwestern slope will suffer less from sun-scald, and ripen its superior fruit 

 at an earlier day. Northwestern slopes always have a more equal isothermal 

 condition than those facing the mid-day sun. The true source of injury to the 

 leaf of the vine from extreme heat arises mainly from the refraction upon its 

 under surface of the sun's rays from the earth ; hence where the seasons are 

 sufficiently long it would seem to be desirable to plant the vine on the north- 

 western slopes. Vineyards on such situations will be less liable to injury by 

 late spring frosts. 



With more care in the selection of soil and locality, vine growing may be 

 made a remunerative branch of agriculture throughout tlic nortliern and western 

 States ; but it will be found a matter of some difficulty to rip«3n the grapes 

 sufficiently to make a wine of commerce, without an addition of cane sugar or 

 alcoholic spirits, which places such beverages under the classification of sopliis 

 tications of the gi-ape juice. There are many localities, however, in southwestern 

 Missouri, southern Kansas, Colorado, Arkansas, and northwestern Texas, where 

 the American vine, and probably some varieties of the foreign kinds, may be 

 made to mature their crops in such perfection as to make a pure wine, free from 

 extraneous substances. In northwestern Texas there are large tracts of grav- 

 elly, volcanic soil, with an arid climate, much resembling portions of Spain and 

 Portugal, where, no doubt, the European wine gi-ape could be groAvn success- 

 fully, if sites are selected with the same reference to soil and exjjosure as is 

 customary in Europe. 



SELECTIONS OF VINEYARD SITES IN CALIFORNIA, AND PREPARATION OF THE 



SOIL. 



The season throughout the State of California, from May until November, is 

 that of cloudless skies, under which the grape will grow everywhere exempt 

 from mildew and rot, except on low, moist, bottom lands, or near the shore of 

 the ocean, on that part of the coast north of Santa Barbara. 



The prevailing winds in the summer are from the colder latitudes of Behring's 

 *^traits, become charged with a great deal of humidity as they seek admissron 

 upon the land through the gaps in the coast range of mountains, in the vicinity 

 of San Francisco. Rising from the sea in immense thick mists, sometimes with 

 the copiousness of showers of rain, these banks of fog are cold and chilly, but 

 become dissipated upon the dry atmosphere before spreading far into the inte- 

 rior, though within a range of twenty miles of San Francisco they have a very 

 deleterious effect on the leaf of the vine and the young grape. Within the 



