GRAPE VINERIES. 101 



GRAPE VINERIES. 



NORFOLK. 



From the Report of the Commiilee. 



The cultivation of the foreign grape ^yas once thought to be 

 the nice point in horticultural practice ; but the success which 

 has attended its cultivation where it has received the practical 

 judgment and care which is necessary in the culture' of any 

 plant requiring, as this does with us, an artificial climate, has 

 dispelled the mystery which was thought to attend its culture. 

 Experience has proved that no crop is «nore sure, and.that there 

 is no luxury more within the means of the classes, in moderate 

 circumstances than this ; and the time will come when the 

 cheap cold vinery will be considered indispensable to every good 

 family garden. In the line of the small fruits the grape fills a 

 larger space in the season than cither the strawberry, raspberry, 

 currant or blackberry, lasting, with proper management, from ' 

 the first of September until winter, and it .is the universal 

 favorite of the whole season. 



The vineries of Charles B. Shaw, Thomas Barrows and Ira 

 Cleveland, Esqs., all of Dedham, were entered for our inspec- 

 tion. These houses have been under the general supervision of 

 Mr. Robert Watt, of West Roxbury, from their first start, and 

 they attest his superior skill in their management. The house 

 of Mr. Shaw was built in 1851, and is consequently sixteen 

 years old. The remarkable success attending this house, it 

 never having failed to produce a full crop of well-ripened fruit, 

 induces us to present to the society Mr. Watt's own account of 

 its management. 



" The house is sixty feet long and twenty feet wide ; the 

 borders all on the outside, twenty feet wide and three feet deep 

 in its whole length, and composted of top-spit of pasture manure 

 one-quarter, and three tons of bone thoroughly mixed. There 

 are nineteen vines of the following varieties : Hamburg's, (the 

 Black, Victoria and No. 16,) Chasselas of Fontainbleau and 

 Zinfandale. Two years old when planted, small but finely 

 rooted, the first season they made a growth of about twenty 



