278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



soil for grapes should be very poor. I entertained that 

 fallacy at one time. It so happened that I was working, on 

 laud that was in rather tine condition, and there I got all the 

 growth I wanted ; in fact, I got sometimes more than I 

 wanted ; and of course I used to talk about having the soil for 

 grapes rather poor. I have come to alter m}^ mind. I find 

 that grapes, little as they exhaust the soil, still do exhaust it, 

 and it is necessary to feed them in order to keep up their 

 productiveness. But there is a difference in the character of 

 the nutriment applied. We do not want to feed grape-vines 

 largely with ammoniacal manures. They cause an exuberant 

 growth of foliage and wood ; they do not bring us fruit. We 

 want another class of fertilizers. Hence barn-yard manures 

 are not the things to apply to grapes, and we do not want 

 land that is full of anything of the kind. Whatever there 

 is in the land should be rotted, unless it is sward, which does 

 not have the influence that barn-yard manures do in their 

 green state. , 



Having prepared the ground by simply mellowing the 

 surface in any way, whether it has been under cultivation or 

 whether it was in sward, we are prepared to grow and plant 

 the vineyard. The first thing is, to select our vines. The 

 best way is to go to a man who knows how to grow vines, and 

 buy them from him. I believe in specialties in almost every- 

 thing. If a man wants to grow grapes, he should grow 

 grapes ; if he wants to make commercial fertilizers, he 

 should make commercial fertilizers, supposing he is honest. 

 The man who grows grape-vines as his business will grow 

 better vines than a man who does not make that his business, 

 but Avho grows only a few. It is a very easy matter to grow 

 grape-vines ; anybody can do it. But the trouble is this : 

 if an amateur plants a lot of cuttings and gets a thousand 

 vines, that he wants to set for fruiting, he will be sure to use • 

 a good many that are worthless, and should be thrown away. 

 If he goes and buys them and pays his money for them, he 

 will buy the best, or should buy only the best. Therefore, 

 I would recommend you to purchase the vines of some ex- 

 perienced grape-grower, rather than to undertake to grow 

 them yourselves. Besides that, you gain one year's growth 

 which is virtually one year's crop of fruit. 



