234 An American Fruit-Farm 



output on a little less than four and one-half miUion 

 vines. In Chautauqua, the adjoining county, the 

 yearly product is sixty-six thousand tons, on some 

 sixteen million vines. Besides this yield of grapes 

 the Valley gives orchard fruits, apples, peaches, 

 pears, prunes, plums, cherries, quinces, and rasp- 

 berries, strawberries, logan berries, nuts, and much 

 garden truck. The federal census prints elaborate 

 tables, long columns of figures, and leaves values 

 quite to the imagination. Of interest to us is that 

 the average yield of each grapevine in the Valley 

 is a little less than seven pounds. Now the yield 

 to the vine depends upon many conditions: the 

 species or stock; the site; the trimming, and 

 the cultivation; but essentially it depends upon the 

 soil. The land that will grow the vine will grow 

 grapes. A basket, weighing eight pounds, the 

 usual size, to the vine, means six hundred baskets 

 to the acre, that is a little over two tons. On 

 virgin soil, or on soil kept in high fertility, eight 

 tons are raised. This is a maximum and an 

 unusual yield. There are hundreds of acres which 

 do not average half a basket to the vine, that is, 

 one ton to the acre. These are the neglected, the 

 worn-out vineyards. All this means soil depletion. 

 During the last fifteen years orchard fruits have 

 come into fashion and fruit-growers have turned 

 from viticulture to the raising of tree fruits — 

 cherries, prunes, peaches. This means that the 

 soil of an old vineyard may be virgin soil for a new 

 orchard. But this virginity will pass unless the 



