The Cultivation of the Fruit-Farm 139 



it is cheaper in price and lies along and near the 

 iSunimit of the hills. It is higher above the sea 

 level than the gravel and loam lands of the Valley; 



ligher by from one hundred to a thousand feet.' 

 The manner of cultivating a vineyard is not a 



latter of common agreement among fruit-growers. 

 'They are unanimous that the vineyard should be 

 cultivated, — but of details let no man speak, ex- 

 pecting every man's approval. Following the prin- 

 ciples of plant -growth, it is evident that the time 

 in which to cultivate a vineyard is while the 

 vines are growing. We cultivate both for vine 

 and for fruit. When vineyards were first planted 

 in the Valley, from 1855 to i860, and for some 

 thirty years later, fruit-growers thought only of the 

 fruit, taking the growth of vine for granted; but 

 since 1890, the vine food, so to speak, in the soil 

 has decreased and the vines have been stimulated 



^ The mean level of Lake Erie is 572.8 feet above mean sea level. 

 The land of the Lake Erie Valley rises rapidly from the lake level; 

 indeed the beach is narrow, — rarely more than three rods, and most of 

 the shore is a series of bluffs, quite steep, overhanging the beach from 

 fifty to two hundred feet. From the top of the bluff the land rises in 

 successive waves which form the floor of tHe Valley. This is from two 

 to two and one half miles wide to the foot of the hills, at the south. 

 The hillside is a gradual rise, attaining to the crest, or fruit-limit, at 

 the south, a height of from seven hundred and fifty to thirteen hundred 

 feet. There are fields of gravel and of clay both in the Valley proper 

 and on the hillsides. The gravel and loam is common south of the 

 fruit-limit. This limit coincides precisely with the area ventilated 

 by the lake winds. Practically all land from which the lake is visible 

 is fruit-land. The frost line mentioned in the third chapter marks 

 accurately the line along which the lake may be seen. In later years 

 fruit-culture has beei) pushed well up to this line and somewhat dis- 

 astrously to the south of it. 



