REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON GARDENS. 353 



contributed largely to produce so fine a crop of fruit. The indi- 

 vidual bunches, taken all through the vineyard, were the best we 

 have seen. It is not often that John B. Moore is beaten, but here we 

 found the Moore's Early in the best state of cultivation that we have 

 thus far had the pleasure to witness, and bearing the largest bunches 

 and the best ripened fruit that we have ever seen and tasted ; 

 at this date (September 9) it was fully ripe. Your Committee, 

 with other invited guests fully competent to judge of the merits 

 of any fruit, will bear cheerful witness to the great value of this 

 grape as an early fruit, and that it continues to merit all that has 

 been said in praise of it. 



The value of the Grape for general culture is acknowledged by 

 all cultivators. So improved by hybridization have been the best 

 varieties of this useful fruit that the interest in grape culture has 

 never been so great as at the present time. What fruit is so 

 universally enjoyed by everybody as the grape ? And now that it 

 is so largely' grown, and sold at such moderate prices — when three 

 pounds can be purchased for twenty-five cents — who is there even 

 among the poorest that cannot get a taste of them. And whether 

 borne on the single vine grown over the trellis in your back yard, 

 on the few vines against the board fence, or on stakes, or in larger 

 quantities by the marketman for commercial purposes — no fruit 

 is more welcome than the grape ; and who of us is not glad that 

 we can buy so cheap that the grape can always accompany the 

 pear in our dessert? 



In an article in the "North American Review "of April, 1865, on 

 grape culture, we read that ' ' no branch of horticulture has at- 

 tracted greater attention among us of late years than vine grow- 

 ing ; and the culture of grapes, both for wine making and for sale in 

 the market, is becoming, even in New England, an important branch 

 of popular labor." These remarks are followed by a very elaborate 

 discussion of the vine and its culture, varieties, and hybridization, 

 and the profits of the business ; in which it is claimed that the 

 cultivation of the vine yields larger and more certain returns than 

 that of anything else that can be grown in New England, tobacco 

 alone excepted. It is further claimed that "eight tons of Concord 

 grapes have been raised on an acre in Massachusetts, and that six 

 tons is an average crop from vines five or six years old ; and Mr. 

 Bull says that an acre of vines four years old will give the cultivator 



