1T4 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



in this vicinity — select a good warm soil, rich enough to pro- 

 duce, with a moderate manuring, forty bushels of corn to the 

 acre, and it will need but little, if any, animal manure for some 

 years afterwards, an occasional dressing of ground bone, ashes 

 and plaster of Paris, being sufficient ; let it be ploughed twelve 

 or fifteen inches deep, and levelled off smooth, — if tl^/ere is a 

 quantity of cobble-stones in the soil, it is none the worse for it ; 

 and the lot is now ready for planting. 



And here let me say, the idea of some cultivators that to 

 raise good native grapes it is necessary to prepare the soil, as 

 many do their borders for foreign grapes, making them two or 

 three feet deep, and filling them with manure, slaughter-house 

 offal and dead animals, is not only very expensive, but useless, 

 and, worse than that, is positively detrimental to successful 

 cultivation. It should be the aim of the grower of grapes to 

 produce good bearing wood for the next year, for very much 

 depends upon that. Now, what is good bearing wood ? Noth- 

 ing more nor less than medium-sized, short-jointed, well-ripened 

 wood, with large, plump buds. On the rich border just men- 

 tioned, you would be very certain to have large, long-jointed, 

 coarse, spongy wood, with feeble buds, and, in many seasons, 

 immaturely ripened. Such wood will not produce so much 

 nor so good fruit as the first described. There is still another 

 objection to the deep, rich border, and that is, the roots are 

 encouraged to run too deep in the ground, for our climate. 

 Here, in old Middlesex, we have no more length of season than 

 is necessary to ripen our crop, and we cannot afibrd to lose one 

 or two weeks of it ; for there is that difference in the time of 

 ripening between those planted on a very deep, rich border, and 

 those on a soil only twelve or fifteen inches deep, the roots of 

 the latter being better warmed by the rays of the sun. Let the 

 rows run north and south, if possible, as it will expose the soil 

 to the same influence. 



The distance apart that the vines should be planted is a 

 question to be settled by more experience. Mr. Hunt plants, 

 (see p. lOG, Secretary's Report,) eight feet by seven, which is 

 fifty-six square feet to a vine, and nearly seven hundred and 

 seventy-eight vines to an acre. They are yet only small vines, 

 trained to a stake, like a common bean-pole, but have already 

 produced, on an average, fifteen and one-half pounds of grapes 



