98 (iRAPE CULTURE AND 



three and a half pounds each have been picked from this vineyard. 

 From 80 acres about 25 tons of grapes will be realized this season, and 

 when it is taken into consideration that these vines have received no 

 water whatever, their condition proves conclusively that, in the right 

 soil, fruit can be produced without irrigation. This soil is no exception, 

 as there are many hundreds of acres of land in the Pomona Valley that 

 likewise need no irrigation whatever. [Pomona Progress, August 20 

 .1885.] 



MR. PACKARD'S LETTER. 



PROF. E. W. HILGARD, Berkeley, Col. : 



DEAR SIR : In response to your request I now send to you a copy of 

 the Pomona Progress, giving a description of the appearance of my 

 Californica vineyard. I will also make a brief memoranda of the de- 

 tails of my method of grafting them. I will here state that I grafted, 

 last spring, about seventy-five thousand, and have now a percentage of 

 loss of about two per cent, of that number. 



First, the vines were cutoff'to within three or four inches of the ground, 

 and the brush hauled away ; second, the land was plowed, the soil be- 

 ing thrown from the- vines; third, grafting commenced February 10, 

 about three weeks before the vines started. For grafting I worked my 

 men in sets of about thirteen, as follows : One man to shovel dirt from 

 the vine ; one man to saw vine at the surface, or one inch below the 

 surface of the ground ; three grafters regular hands, who had never put 

 in a graft until they commenced this job ; one man following to wax the 

 union, who used a brush and wax pot; and, finally, seven men to shovel 

 the dirt to the vine, covering the gratt to the top bud. All workmen except- 

 ing the grafters, were Chinamen. Each gang grafted eighteen hundred to 

 two thousand per day. Varieties grafted : Burger, Zinfandel, Mataro, and 

 Golden Chasselas. All have made a magnificent growth. Commencing 

 grafting February 18, I substantially finished three weeks after that date 

 having something like ten thousand remaining, which were finished 

 up by two or three men by April 1, when the vines were in leaf. I can 

 see no material difference either in percentage of loss or in growth be- 

 tween the early and the late-grafted. The method used was a cleft 

 graft for the larger vines say all larger than your little finger. For 

 the smaller ones a tongue graft was used, and a great many were grafted 

 which were not larger than a lead pencil. I find that the latter are 

 doing as well as any of the larger ones. As a matter of experiment, 

 one of my men cut the top of a vine off below a point where the roots 

 branched out, and inserted four Mataro grafts in as many small roots. 



