SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



feeble, producing' small wood and soarcely any fruit, and many of them died the next 

 winter, so that I have lost about all the hundred set out in 1868. and some of my older 

 ones, and the other older ones have done poorly for two summers past. About the best 

 I now have are the Chasselas, set out in 1858, and a Black Hamburgh set out about 1861 

 as a cuttino:. My Concord fjrapes, which I set in 1861, and which did finely till within 

 two years, have also failed badly. 



Within a few years many houses have been built near me, and thouarh none but 

 the one I have named keep any sun from my garden, still they have added much to 

 the smoke and coal soot that settles around. 



Whetlier it was the dry, cold winter of 1871-2, the want of sun to ripen the 

 wood, the coal smoke and soot, one or all toofether that have done the miscliief, I can 

 not say. Whether your grape-louse has had a hand in it, I do not know, as 1 have made 

 no examination. 



The Chasselas has s'enerally done the best of the foreign varities I have culti- 

 vated, but the Black Hamburgh, Black Prince, and Rulander liave done well. They have 

 not had any protection in sumuier excf^pt such as was given by my house on the north 

 side, and a high, close board tVnce on the other sides of the garden. Those at a dis- 

 tance from the house do as well as those near it. The oldest Chasselas was in good 

 bearing for ten or eleven years, and I bnlieve would have continued many years longer, 

 and all the others, but for the circumstances 1 have named. 



I have satisfied myself that witli intelligent care, the varieties I have named can 

 be grown in this climate witliout the protection of glass, and give the cultivator an 

 abundance of delicious table grapes out of his own garden, asT have had for many 

 years. He must have a sunny garden, protected on the north and west at least, and a 

 deep, 7-ich soil. Two days' labor in the fall and two in the spring will lay down and take 

 up a hundred vines and more."* 



Yours, respectful) v, 



D. T. .TEWETT. 



Of numerous varieties of LHulfera, mostly received from California, and planted 

 ■on their own roots, by Mr. George H. Gill ofKirkwood, all have died except one which 

 he obtained under the name of Malagar, and which still lives, though not in the mest 

 flourishing condition, and with the roots thickly covered with lice. Whether in bunch, 

 berry or leaf, this vine looks very much like Eebecca, and as its history can not be 

 traced by Mr. Gill with any satisfaction, it is more than likely that it is not vinifera. 

 Both Dr. Engelmann and Prof. Planchon ai'eat least of this mind, after making careful 

 comparisons. 



Mr. M. J. Labiaux, of Ridgeway, Warren Co., North Carolina, nothing daunted 

 by previous failures, imported and planted last spring one hundred thousand cuttings 

 from the south of France. There was not a Phylloxera on their roots last fall when 

 Prof. Planchon visited him, and the young vines, notwithstanding an unusually dry 

 season, had made a most luxuriant growth. The Phylloxera was, however, found in 

 the neighborhood. I do not doubt that with proper care and culture Mr. Labiaux will 

 yet be able to laugh at his incredulous and discouraging neighbors, if he can only master 

 the root-louse. 



(16) It were vain to attempt to anticipate results, and while some of the past 

 grafung experience in this country is not of the most encouraging, there is nothing to 

 indicate that good results may not follow thorough, full and systematic experiments ; 

 while much of said experience bears directly on the Phylloxera question. The Clinton 

 has been very largely imported into France for stock purposes; but whether it will 

 prove as valuable as Norton's, <'unningham or Herbemont, remains to be seen Mr. 

 Bush places little value on it as a stock, because of its great tendency to sucker and 

 sprout .and to supplant the graft. But precisely that wliich would prove best for us in 

 this country might not prove best in France ; and the very qualities for which Mr. Bush 

 would condenni the Clinton are those wliich the French vine-growers need. They need, 



♦Since the above letter w.i.s written, und wiiile these pages are going tlivough the press, IMr. Lugger 

 lias, at mv request, made an exaniiuatiou of these vines, as 1 had had no opportunity of doing so before. 

 He reports them ui very jiooreondition, and tinds evidence of PhyHoxera in the swollen and rotting 

 I'oots. 



