250 THE GRAPE. 



sun it will require very little summer pruning ; in fact, none^ 

 except stopping the young shoots three joints beyond the farthest 

 bunch of grapes, at midsummer for the leaves being intended 

 by nature to elaborate the sap, the more we can retain of them 

 (without robbing the fruit unduly of fluids expended in making 

 new growth.) the larger and higher flavoured will be the fruit ; 

 careful experiments having proved that there is no more suc- 

 cessful mode of impoverishing the crop of fruit than that of 

 pulling off the leaves. 



The annual pruning of the hardy grapes is usually perform- 

 ed during mild days in February or March at least a month 

 before vegetation is likely to commence. Many cultivators 

 prefer to prune their vines in November, and, except for cold 

 latitudes or exposures, this is undoubtedly the better season. 



Every third year, at least, the borders where the vines are 

 growing should have a heavy top-dressing of manure. The 

 vine soon exhausts the soil within its reach, and ceases bearing 

 well when that is the case. We have frequently seen old and 

 impoverished vines entirely resuscitated by digging in about the 

 roots, as far as they extend, a very heavy top-dressing of slightly 

 fermented stable manure. 



VINEYARD CULTURE. While many persons who have either 

 made or witnessed the failures in raising the foreign grapes in 

 vineyards in this country, believe it is folly for us to attempt 

 to compete with France and Germany in wine-making, some of 

 our western citizens, aided by skilful Swiss and German vine- 

 dressers emigrants to this country, have placed the fact of 

 profitable vineyard culture beyond a doubt, in the valley of the 

 Ohio. The vineyards on the Ohio, now covering many acres, 

 produce regular, and very large crops, and their wine of the 

 different characters of Madeira, Hock, and Champagne, brings 

 very readily from 75 cents to one dollar a gallon in Cincinnati. 

 The Swiss, at Vevay, first commenced wine-making in the West, 

 but to the zeal and fostering care of N. Long worth, Epq., of 

 Cincinnati, one of the most energetic of western horticulturists, 

 that district of country owes the firm basis on which the vine 

 culture is now placed.* The native grapes chiefly the Ca- 

 tawba are entirely used there, and as many parts of the middle 



* From an interesting letter on this subject which Mr. Longworth has kindly 

 favoured us with, we gladly extract the following, knowing how much it will in- 

 terest the practical reader. 



" I can scarcely now state the present extent of the culture of the grape for 

 wine in this country. We have a large German population who are yearly plant- 

 ing new vineyards, and I believe the Ohio river will be, in the course of the next 

 century, as celebrated for its wine as the Rhine. After 30 years of experience, 

 with vines from Madeira in the south, and the mountains of Jura in the north, 

 and most of the intermediate latitudes, I am satisfied that the foreign vine can 

 never succeed with us. Nor do I believe in its acclimation. I have cultivated 

 the Chasselas for the table for 30 years, and it does not now succeed so well as it 

 did the first few seasons that I had it. I have found tivo or three foreign varie- 



