WHAT THE VINES WANT. 303 



jointed wood. Where I applied potash and bone, I got the 

 same result, in an intensified degree. Where I applied the 

 other substances, I got nothing. The vines simply said they 

 did not want it. They said they wanted potash, and espe- 

 cially they wanted potash and bone together. Next year, I 

 shall take the hint, and apply potash and bone in preference 

 to anything else that I can get. 



Question". What was the quantity to each vine ? 



Dr. Fisher. I did not apply anything to the vines. I 

 applied it to the ground, broadcast. 



Question. How much to the acre ? 



Dr. Fisher. Anywhere from four hundred pounds to a 

 ton. I can tell you better if you will ask me in a few years. 

 These experiments are all going on at this time. I applied 

 these materials at the rate of from two to five hundred 

 pounds per acre. 



Mr. Everett. How many hundred weight of grapes do 

 you get from an acre ? 



Dr. Fisher. Nine hundred vines, yielding six pounds 

 each, make five thousand four hundred pounds to the acre. 



Mr. Slade. What experience have you had with insects? 



Dr. Fisher. There are three insects that have given me 

 some trouble. One is the little steel-blue beetle, — the Haltica 

 chalybea, I think it is, — that comes in the spring, just .as the 

 buds are swelling, and makes a hole in the bud and eats it 

 through, so that it does not develop. Then, on those that do 

 develop, the insect lays an Qgg, — one egg upon a leaf, — and that 

 becomes a slug that feeds upon the leaf. It disfigures it a 

 good deal, but does not harm it much. I think in one in- 

 stance a gentleman told me that a crop of his was damaged 

 one-half by injury to the leaf. The principal injury is by eat- 

 ing the bud, when, of course, they destroy your hopes of 

 getting fruit. Go round when the buds are swelling and you 

 can see them (they arc a greenish blue) , and kill them when- 

 ever you can catch them. There are not a great many of 

 them, but it takes only a few to do considerable damage. I 

 have followed them up for some years, but for two or three 

 years past I have not been troubled by them. When I see 

 one of the slugs I always crush it. 



Then there were the leaf-rollers that came two or three 



