GRQWING THE GRAPE. 101 



terraces are built with stone, to sustain the soil. The estate 

 where the famous Johannisberg wine is made, which brings 

 fabulous prices, and is consumed only by the crowned heads 

 and a few noblemen of Europe, is one of very limited extent. 

 What there is in that soil which makes such peculiar wine, I 

 cannot say. But there are choice and peculiar locations, where 

 grapes will do exceedingly well. Grapes have been planted in 

 uncongenial soil and unfavorable locations, and there we may 

 expect failures. I have no doubt that grape-growing will be 

 condemned because of these failures, but the fault was not in 

 the grape ; it was in the location, or perhaps in the nutriment 

 the vine received. 



Now there are any number of theories and any number of 

 modes of practice in regard to the management of the grape. 

 I feel as though I did not know but little about this matter, 

 though I have been engaged in the business all my life. I will 

 give you a few facts. Twenty-five years ago we had in the rear 

 of our house a plum tree, so situated that it had only the morn- 

 ing sun until ten or eleven o'clock. On that plum tree grew an 

 Isabella vine. It never was pruned ; it had its own way ; it 

 extended all over that tree, and during all the years that I 

 remember of its fruiting it never failed to ripen. I will say, in 

 that connection, that I never have succeeded in ripening the 

 Isabella so well but once since, with all our improved methods 

 of training. It was protected by the house, and I do not think 

 the mildew or rot ever affected it. 



I have on my place a native grape — I mean a grape taken 

 from the woods — planted there about fifteen years ago. It runs 

 over an old black cherry tree. I never have failed to get a 

 good crop from that vine. It never has received any treatment' 

 whatever. It takes care of itself — never mildews, never rots, 

 and always ripens its fruit more perfectly than any vine I have 

 had ; and I have had two thousand. Right opposite, and within 

 twenty-five feet of it, I have the Concord, which I have relied 

 upon as the most valuable, take it all in all, in the country. 

 That proved a perfect failure this year — a complete and down- 

 right failure ; the grapes were not worth picking. I planted at 

 the rate of eight hundred to the acre, trained spirally to posts 

 six or seven feet high. My crop was a complete failure ; I did 

 not sell five dollars' worth of grapes, and I should have had two 



