THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



109 



bearing fruit, after a winter's exposure 

 on the trellises, I doubt if they have 

 an equal. 



THE VERGENNES. 



I have been led by claims of extraor- 

 dinary merit to entertain great expec- 

 tations for the Vergennes, though, had 

 these claims not been endorsed by a 

 disinterested party, I should have con- 

 sidered that they arose in a great 

 measure with the gentleman who wrote 

 out the advertisement, and it is quite 

 certain that he who undertook that 

 task for the Vergennes is well up to 

 his business. He claims that it is 

 hardy and wonderfully productive, a 

 better grower than the Concoixl, as 

 early as the Hartford Prolific, keeps 

 all winter, and can be diied into a 

 raisin, bunch and berries ai-e large and 

 hold firmly to the stem, the flavour 

 delicious, colour light amber, free from 

 mildew, and the seeds few and small. 

 Now, can your readers think of any 

 good quality that a grape vine might 

 be expected to have, or that they could 

 wish it to possess, that is not enumer- 

 ated in the above ; or can they find 

 any man who has spent money in try- 

 ing higli-priced and highly-praised 

 vines, who will believe that any one 

 vine can truly claim much more than 

 half of those merits 1 I would suggest 

 to Mr. Perry, the author of the above 

 description, that if he wishes to add 

 another attraction to the above long list, 

 that he should endeavor to produce a 

 grape that is free from seeds ; but what 

 was my surprise some ten or twelve 

 months ago to find tlie Editor of the 

 Rural Sew Yorke-; saying he believed 

 the Vergennes to be all that was claimed 

 for it ; that gentleman is, I believe, a 

 reliable authority, and his recommenda- 

 tion induced me to order at once a 

 couple of vines ; and notwithstanding 

 my enthusiasm has been a little checked 

 by his having in a late number of that 

 journal, so far modified his opinion as 



to express a doubt with respect to its 

 claim for earliness, it has not prevented 

 me sending an order a few weeks ago 

 for half a dozen more, for it is clear 

 that should it prove no earlier than the 

 Concord, it must, if its other claims 

 are well founded, establish it^ title to 

 be called : " The grape for the million." 



PRODUCTIVENESS. 



I would like to know if any of your 

 i-eaders ever saw a fruit tree or vine of 

 any kind advertised for sale that was 

 not said to be productive ; some are very 

 productive, some wonderfully j)roduct- 

 ive, some immensely productive, and 

 some are inclined to overbear. I some- 

 times think this word productive is 

 used in a double sense, and gives " the 

 word of promise to our ear, and breaks 

 it to our hope." I might say that my 

 Black Currant bushes are pi'oductive ; 

 and so they are, whatever produces fruit 

 is in one sense productive ; and they 

 produce Black Currants ; but then there 

 are so few of them that they don't pay 

 for picking. I prefer the overbearing 

 kind, it is so much more satisfactory to 

 pull off a little of the superabundant 

 crop than to be cultivating a splendid 

 array of empty branches ; besides, the 

 best fruit can be retained in the thinning 

 out. v/hereas if the crop is too thin, 

 wdiatever presents itself must beallowed 

 to grow ; for this reason I am partial 

 to the Duchess, Wealthy and Wagner 

 apples, the Lombard plum and the 

 Delaware, and I hope to be able to add 

 the Pi-entiss and Vergennes grapes. 



EARLIXESS. 



Well then as to earliness ; how com- 

 mon it is to see " ripens with the Con- 

 cord " or "about with the Concord," 

 and so they may, and still be very late 

 grapes ; one writer says, " about with 

 the Concord," means two weeks later ; 

 but look at the " double sense " again ; 

 the last of the Champions might be 

 ripening with the first of the Concords, 



