GRAPE CULTURE AND WINE MAKING. 565 



it is one that requires but one planting in a lifetime, while it 

 will reward us with annual harvests. Many of the new soils in 

 our Western States need no manures ; but a soil not naturally 

 adapted to the grape, or partially exhausted, will need various 

 additions. If the soil is not surcharged with lime a liberal 

 dressing of it will always be beneficial. When the soil is 

 sandy or gravelly, it will require an abundant dressing of barn- 

 yard manure, muck, leaf mould, or the plowing under of green 

 crops. Muck and leaf mould are especially valuable on such, 

 soils, and thousands of acres of almost barren, sandy soils, 

 in the Eastern States, by the application of leaf mould from 

 the adjoining forest or muck from the neighboring swamp, 

 might be made to bear most luxuriant and profitable crops of 

 the grape. Such soils, thus amended, are easily worked, are 

 already underdrained, and produce the richest quality of fruit. 

 Whatever the soil, it should be plowed and subsoiled to the 

 depth of twenty inches, and manured with a compost of peat 

 or muck and leaf nlould, with old well rotted stable manure. 

 This compost should be made several months before it is 

 applied, and thoroughly forked over frequently before using. 

 Ashes, lime, bones, or charcoal will always prove a valuable 

 addition. A few soils will do without any application but a 

 top dressing of lime, harrowed in ; others will require a light 

 dressing of fifty loads to the acre, and from this up to two or 

 ihree hundred loads. Where the barnyard manure cannot be 

 obtained, the compost may be made without it, adding lime 

 ashes and a bushel of salt to every ten loads. This compost 

 should stand at least six months, and be frequently forked over. 

 Whichever compost is used, it should be applied after the plow- 

 ing and subsoiling, and cross plowed in, then harrowed and 

 cross harrowed, as complete pulverization is of the utmost im- 

 portance to the young vines. "Will all this pay?" We 



