328 ^ The Vineyards of Vineland. 



year cuttings) on a piece of new land near my residence. The ground 

 had no preparation whatever, except that of grubbing and ploughing 

 once, the stumps being left to decay at their leisure. The holes were 

 small, as will be inevitable where stumps remain, and the work was 

 done rather hastily and late in the season. To each vine he gave three 

 fourths of a pound of ground bones, and between the rows, which were 

 ten feet apait, he planted three rows of strawberries. He did not re- 

 side on the land, and the cultivation was inferior, the strawberries also 

 soon occupying most of the grovnid. But in spite of these drawbacks, 

 the vines made an excellent growth ; he picked a few clusters the sec- 

 ond season (besides a crop of beri'ies on the same ground), and in 1868 

 two and a half pounds per vine, bringing him one hundred and eighty 

 dollars, or about four and a half times the first cost of the land. In 

 1869, Mr. Chauncey Paul, the present owner, gathered from this and 

 an adjoining vineyard of eight hundred vines planted in 1867, six 

 thousand five hundred pounds of fruit. Reckoning the yield from the 

 younger vineyard the same as from the others at their age, the rate per 

 vine from the oldest vineyard will be seven and a half pounds, which, 

 under the circumstances, was certainly very creditable. 



Walter Robbins, of South Vineland, planted eleven hundred vines in 

 the spring of 1S67, on new land, not stumped, and of course without 

 subsoiling. The holes were dug " about two feet square," eight feet by 

 eight apart, depth not given. He applied no manure directly, but be- 

 tween the rows he planted round potatoes for two seasons, fertilizing 

 these with four hundred pounds of flour of bone and phosphate to the 

 acre. The vines made an excellent growth ; but seven hundred of them, 

 grown by a local dealer, Mr. J. W. Cone, did considerably better than 

 the balance, purchased from a western nurseryman. The potato crop 

 each year yielded about one hundred and twenty-five bushels, the first 

 of these bringing him one hundred and sixty-six dollars and twenty-five 

 cents in the spring of 1868, when prices were high. He had a few 

 grapes in 1S6S, and last season a crop of seven thousand pounds, which 

 netted him about five hundred dollars. It will be a matter of surprise 

 if such a crop, from so young a vineyard, does not materially weaken 

 the vines for several years to come. 



