104 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF VITICULTURE 



shipped in from the East, the local vineyards supplying our markets with 

 about thirty-five thousand of the same sized baskets. 



With the increase in acreage the problem of the Dixie grower has been 

 to find a suitable market for his grapes. The district as a whole is seventy 

 to eighty miles from the nearest railroad point and, with poor roads, the 

 placing of grapes on the Salt Lake market in a condition to compete with 

 the California grapes is almost beyond possibility. So that what little is 

 marketed fresh is usually hauled to the p^arby mining camps; the bulk of 

 the crop being made into raisins. 



Statistics of Crop. 



The 1910 census gave a total of 204,445 vines in Utah and of these 

 124,827 were in the St. George district. At 700 vines per acre the total 

 acreage at that time was 292 acres. The yield was given as 1,576,363 pounds 

 and of this 985,400 pounds were accredited to the St. George district. The 

 average yield for the State was then 7.7 pounds; for the Great Basin section 

 7.3 pounds and for St. George district slightly under 8 pounds per vine. This 

 census also shows that eight of the twenty-se^en counties grew no grapes 

 at all. 



Since 1910 several large Concord vineyards have been planted so that 

 the total area for the northern part is about 275 acres and for the St. George 

 district about 185 acres all told. In the north about three-fourths of the 

 acreage is Concord or other varieties of that type, the remainder Vinifera 

 varieties mostly Muscat, In the St. George section probably nine-tenths of 

 the grapes are Vinifera. 



Treatment of the Soil. 



Planting. Very often in the past the sites chosen for grapes have been 

 on gravelly slopes, where proper care in preparing the soil and in planting 

 were either difficult to give or were lacking. Partial or total failure came in 

 many instances, thus discouraging the industry. The general practice in 

 later years has been to plow the land deeply in the fall, thoroughly pulverize 

 it in the spring and after marking the rows each way to plow the furrows 

 with the slope of the land. From this point the practice differs, some men 

 placing the stakes before planting the vines, others planting the vines, the 

 usual care in heeling in and using the proper soil being exercised, then the 

 soil is hilled around the plant and a small irrigating stream turned in at the 

 head of the row and allowed to soak the soil about the newly set plants. 



After the soil has dried sufficiently in the furrow, it is plowed in and 

 the soil cultivated at intervals to conserve the moisture and to keep the 

 weeds down. Where the stakes are not set before planting they are usually 

 left until the second or third year. 



Irrigation. The first year two to five irrigations are required depending 

 upon the season and locality. In all of the vineyards visited by the writer 

 (most of those within the State), two irrigation furrows for each row are 

 used. In the north on moderately open soils one or two irrigations will 

 normally be sufficient to mature the crop and enable the vine to prepare for 

 winter. However, some growers have found that more water applied will 

 produce larger grapes, consequently a great yield. This is true of soils with 

 a shallow surface soil and a loose gravelly subsoil. These grapes are not so 



