6 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



favorable seasons for the grape, both as to productiveness and 

 the quality of the vintage. 



The average yield of wine throughout Europe is about two 

 hundred and fifty gallons per acre, worth, at twenty-five cents 

 a gallon, sixty-three dollars an acre ; or, for the twelve millions, 

 two hundred and eighty-five thousand and seven hundred and 

 eighty acres under cultivation, somewhat more than seven 

 hundred and seventy-four millions of dollars. 



But in this country, where such large quantities of the fruit 

 are sold for the table at good prices, and where the yield per 

 acre is much greater, Mr. Bull claims that the profits greatly 

 surpass those secured in Europe. He states that Col. Husmann, 

 of Missouri, fifty miles of St. Louis, gets nearly nine tons of 

 grapes, and makes a thousand gallons of wine to the acre ! 

 This, however, is an extraordinary yield ; for the average prod- 

 uct of the vineyards in Missouri is from 250 to 600 gallons of 

 wine to the acre ; and the yield of the Catawba grape, on Kel- 

 ley's Island, Lake Erie, is only three and a half tons to the acre. 

 Yet Mr. Jode, of Burlington, Iowa, took 8,860 pounds of Con- 

 cord grapes from half an acre, which had been planted but four 

 years — this being the first crop — while a gentleman in Worces- 

 ter County, Massachusetts, has gathered crops from his vineyard 

 the value of which has averaged $1,700 to the acre. 



Mr, Bull does not think the situation of his own vineyards 

 very favorable, but states that he has raised seven tons per acre, 

 and that last year, which was an unfavorable one for grapes, he 

 gathered five and a half tons per acre, while for seventeen suc- 

 cessive years he has not failed to have a good crop. He regards 

 seven tons of the Concord grape per acre as a fair average yield 

 for a vineyard well established, in a favorable aspect, soil, &c., 

 and states that a ready market is secured for the crop at prices 

 which have steadily advanced from ten to twenty cents a pound, 

 while at ten cents the full crop of an acre would amount to 

 $1,400, and at twenty cents to |2,800. 



These amounts seem fabulous. Nevertheless, Mr. Bull states, 

 on his own knowledge, that $2,000 per acre was realized in 

 1865. But let us suppose the average crop to be but three and 

 and a half tons per acre, and the price but ten cents per pound, 

 this gives 1700 to the acre. 



