96 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



water, etc. I stir it once a day until it begins to fer- 

 ment, and leave it standing several days, and then it 

 is ready for use. When I have no cow manure, any 

 other animal manure, mixed with the offals of tobacco, 

 ashes, lime, and rain-water, will answer the same pur- 

 pose. Of this fluid I pour about a gallon around the 

 roots of every grape-vine, making a small ditch, five 

 or six inches deep, around the vine, to keep the fluid 

 from running off. When it has soaked into the 

 ground, I cover up the ditch with earth. A month 

 after the blooming of the vine, I repeat this again. In 

 this manner I have kept my grapes sound." 



It was thirty years after this mephitic compound 

 was recommended to the public, that the first and 

 great specific for the mildew and black -rot the Bor- 

 deaux mixture was perfected by the illustrious Mil- 

 lardet and his compeers, in France. It has required 

 the travail of two centuries to give us this simple mix- 

 ture of blue-stone and lime; but now the most careless 

 urchin may have the knowledge which Dufour, Adlum, 

 Loubat, Buchanan, Longworth, and all the rest, would 

 have given all their worldly goods to possess! 



To us, the black -rot and the mildew have come to 

 be subjects of secondary importance. We hold the 

 secret and we can apply the remedy. But they were 

 serious matters in the old days. The following narra- 

 tive, written by Longworth in 1849, is proof of this, 

 and it also admirably illustrates the common adage 

 that "misfortunes never come singly:" 



"My oldest vine -dresser, Father Ammen, has gone 

 the way of all flesh, and I regret his end. He was a 

 worthy old man. Some twelve years since, he lost his 

 wife, and deeply regretted her loss. He assured me, 



