320 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



house " are conueeted at the rear. A hedge of Norway Spruce 

 beyoud, protects cold pits aud frames and a summer chrysauthe- 

 mum shelter, and serves too, to conceal the ash-pile, and also the 

 loam, etc., for the potting shed. 



Extending back from this hedge is a grove, open enough to yield 

 some grass. A road leads down through the centre. The trees, 

 some old, but the greatest number planted twenty years ago or 

 less, are in great variety, largely North American, and the collec- 

 tion is constantly being added to, the older trees being cut out, 

 and serving to supply the house with firewood. 



Below are two grazing fields, which extend to the salt marsh. 



It may be mentioned in closing this account that there is a 

 nursery of 3'oung trees and shrubs, into which new acquisitions 

 are generally put before planting out permanently. 



Vineyard and Plum Orchard of George B. Andrews, 



FiTCHBURG. 



Tlie Committee next visited these grounds, concerning which 

 Mr. Andrews wrote as follows : 



Twenty-two years ago I entered the field as a grape grower. 

 We were, at that time, following the practice of most of the 

 farmers of our neighborhood, growing corn and potatoes. This 

 brought but very little money into the house, for with the exception 

 of the sale of a few potatoes and what butter was made, there was 

 nothing to sell. So I was determined to set grapes, and get out of 

 the old ruts if I had to break the wheels in so doing. 



One of the most important things in grape growing is a favor- 

 able location. Especially does this hold true with us here in 

 northern Massachusetts, where, under the most favorable conditions, 

 we need every hour's sun during the season for the growth aud 

 ripening of our best hardy out-door grapes. To accomplish this 

 let us select some warm, southeast slope. "We should not get too 

 near the bottom of the hill, as I have seen done in many cases, as 

 the danger there is that we may be cut a week or more short in the 

 season by an early frost, which, had we been located a hundred or 

 even fifty feet higher up the hill, might have been avoided, and the 

 crop thereby have been saved. Neither is it a good plan to place 

 a vineyard at the top of a hill, for the exposure to the winds 

 damages a large portion of the fruit during the last stages of 



