124 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Note hy the Committee. — The late remarkably hot and dry 

 summer has been generally considered very favorable' for the 

 grape crop. In view of this fact Mr. Packard may err in attril)- 

 uting to the drought the failure of some of his fruit to ripen 

 fully. If anything relating to grape culture is settled beyond 

 controversy, it is that grapes exposed to the sun, or growing 

 upon vines denuded of foliage, do not ripen as perfectly as 

 those more completely shaded. It is quite possible that his 

 vines, trained to single upright posts, and pinched back and 

 summer pruned severely, may have been in some cases so de- 

 ficient in leaves as to prevent the proper elaboration of the 

 juices of the plant, or that the direct rays of the sun acting 

 upon the fruit itself, may have caused some chemical change of 

 a nature to retard or wholly arrest the process of ripening. 



Statement of the Messrs. Barnes. 



Our vineyard, situated on the east side of Bedford Street, 

 North Abington, contains one hundred rods of land and four 

 hundred and twenty vines. The land slopes a little to the 

 south-west, the soil being a sandy loam, which had been planted 

 with corn and root crops the three years previous to 1867. It 

 was ploughed to the usual depth for corn, early in April of that 

 year, and cross-ploughed, then harrowed the first of May, and 

 furrowed out ten feet apart for the rows, which run east and 

 west. The vines are six feet apart in the rows, and trained to 

 trellises formed of posts twelve feet apart, with two rails nailed 

 to the posts horizontally, two and a half feet apart, the lower 

 one being eighteen inches from the ground. On a part of them, 

 laths were nailed perpendicularly, about one foot apart on the 

 rails ; on the rest telegraph wires were fastened to the posts 

 between the rails. 



The vines are trained on the double tier and arm and spur 

 system, as described by Fuller. Our vines were purchased of a 

 nursery agent in Boston, but were not received by us until three 

 weeks after the time agreed upon, making it the last of May 

 when they were set out, which, as we think, materially checked 

 their growth for that and the subsequent season. Concord 

 vines only were ordered, but when they had thrown out new 

 buds and leaves we found about sixty of them were Dianas. 



Two rows of potatoes, heavily manured, were planted in each 



