80 GRAPE. 



face ; and he disapproves stopping the shoots before the fruit 

 until early in July. 



Mr. William Wilson, of Clermont, leaves his foreign vines 

 their whole length at the time of trimming iu October. In 

 November, they are laid on the ground at full length, fastened 

 down with pins, and covered lightly with earth ; in this state 

 they lie all the winter. In April, as soon as the weather 

 will permit, they are uncovered, and left lying on the ground 

 ten or twelve days : by the first of May, the vines are trained 

 to stakes or poles of the length of ten feet and upward ; 

 and by the middle of June the stakes are entirely covered 

 by new shoots of the vine, and with plenty of fruit, which 

 ripens in September. Mr. W. says, that until he pursued 

 his present course, his fruit was frequently blasted and mil- 

 dewed, but that he has now vines twenty or thirty feet long, 

 which run up the fruit trees adjoining ; others, being carried 

 up eight or ten feet, are stretched horizontally. It is seldom 

 he gathers fruit within three or four feet of the ground, and 

 he has never any blasted or infected with mildew ; he keeps 

 the ground cultivated by frequent hoeing ; but he says he 

 has used no manure for ten years or more. 



Edward H. Bonsall has a vineyard of American Grapes 

 at Germantown, Pa., in a high state of cultivation. In page 

 331 of Prince's Treatise on the Vine, is a letter to the au- 

 thor, containing some valuable information, from which the 

 following is extracted as appropriate to our subject. 



Mr. Bonsall's vineyard is situated between the Schuylkill 

 and Delaware Rivers, four miles from the former, and eight 

 from the latter, at an elevation of three hundred feet above 

 their level ; has an aspect facing S. S. E., with a substratum 

 of light isinglass soil, and seems well suited to the purpose. 

 He says, " from my experience, both on my premises and at 

 other places, it is my opinion that we should reject almost 

 all the foreign varieties, especially where our object in culti- 

 vating them is to make wine." He has upward of thirty 

 varieties of American vines under cultivation ; he recom- 



