246 An American Fruit- Farm 



on six. This is what he meant by refusing to buy 

 more grape land. In walking over thirty-five acres 

 he traveled no farther and labored not much more 

 wearily than did the owners of six times his area. 

 And he would not grow varieties; his one grape 

 was the Concord. "I know the Concord and it 

 knows me," he would say; and this mutual ac- 

 quaintance, almost rising to friendship, yielded him 

 over two himdred tons of Concords quite every 

 year. ''I have missed fire," he said one October 

 day. It had been a cold, rainy 3^ear; insects and 

 w^orms and fungus rampant and the market poor. 

 ''I don't run the weather. " But I noticed that his 

 grapes were better than any others in the Valley 

 and few of them of second quality. Other vine- 

 yards stood out under the same sky, but he so 

 managed his that they showed slight effect of the 

 bad weather which had filled the Valley quite the 

 season through. On asking him how he managed 

 to escape the weather he replied: "I sail with the 

 wind, not against it." This meant that the engulf- 

 ing rains of the season damaged him not at all. His 

 land was so thoroughly drained that siuplus water 

 could not remain long enough to harm the vines. 

 When other orchards and vineyards were eaten 

 by insects and stifled by fungi, Neville's, though 

 infested, were but slightly injured, for he fought 

 these pests every year, and, keeping his plantation 

 quite immune, anticipated their ravages. *'I al- 

 ways do as if everything ought to be done," he 

 would say, and would spray his vineyards when his 



