88 



years and have not as yet produced anything very satisfactory. 

 Either my berries or bunches are small, or, if I highly manure 

 the ground, the vines make such rampant growth that the wood 

 ripens poorly, and the grapes seldom become fit for use. 



In starting the vines I have used single eyes, cuttings and al- 

 so layers, I have never had much trouble with either method, but 

 think that I should prefer layers of one year's growth to either 

 of the other methods. In my experience I have found that a 

 good, strong one year old vine is the best to set, surest to grow 

 and is at just the right age to tr un in any manner preferred by 

 the cultivator. Some of my vines are twenty years old and 

 others have been set only a year. I have set out vines more or 

 less every year except the four years of the rebJlion when I 

 was away from home. 



My location is one which I consider to be the best for this cli- 

 mate — a southern slope with ledges and pine trees in the rear to 

 break off the cold northern winds and also the disagreeable 

 blasts that come from the east. The rays of the Septe.nber 

 sun striking on the ledges heat them up and thus prol jng the 

 warmth far into the night, and consequently th a frosts )f early au- 

 tumn are less liable to nip the foliage and thus retard the ripen- 

 ing. My soil is a gravelly loam mixed with broken fragments of 

 stone, and is in and of itself rather poor ; so rough and inacces- 

 sible that I cannot cultivate much with a team, and as I cannot 

 raise cultivated crops there, I have planted grapes. If anything 

 is done to my vines after well setting out, and an occasional top 

 dressing of tan ashes, it is a light hoeing and top covering or 

 mulch of old meadow hay, weeds or wood-wax. 



As it is customary to cut and prune the vine I used to follow 

 in the beaten track marked out by theorists. Of late years I 

 have not used the knife so freely, and am well assured that I 

 have been more successful as to good, well ripened wood and al- 



