FELT HIS WAY ALONG. 311 



Question. I understood the gentleman to say that these 

 shoots eome from stumps fifteen inches high, and that the 

 shoots were some five or six feet long, and sustained from 

 thirty to forty pounds of grapes. I want to ask him whether 

 those shoots support those grapes, or whether they lie on the 

 ground ? 



Mr. Everett. The shoots bend over, and the bunches 

 hang over the stump, and almost touch the ground. 



Mr. Slade. I listened to a discussion some eight or nine 

 years ago, when I first became a member of this Board, in 

 regard to grape-culture. The lecture was delivered by Mr. 

 Bull, of Concord, and a gentleman who came some forty or 

 fifty miles, in common with me, to hear this lecture, with the 

 view of planting a vineyard, became so discouraged during 

 the complications that Mr. Bull went through in trimming 

 the vines, that he was completely disheartened, and finally 

 decided not to set out a vineyard. Now, the object is to 

 simplify the thing, so that anybody who is not very wise can 

 go ahead and have a vineyard of his oavu. As I came to the 

 hall last evening, a gentleman said to me, "I have got a cer- 

 tain number of vines, I have read everything in regard to 

 pruning, and I am perfectly bewildered. I lay awake nights 

 thinking' what I shall do. I want to know how I am sroino: 

 to manage that vineyard." I had been over Mr. Hyde's vine- 

 yard, and I told him, "Train the stem right round your 

 stake, tie a string at the top, and cut off the end." " Where ? " 

 says he. Says I, " Cut it back until the wood is hard and 

 black. What you want is well-ripened wood." He felt 

 pleased with that advice. What I wish to say is, that there 

 is not a town in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in 

 which there are not particular spots that are almost worth- 

 less for any other purpose, where a vineyard may be planted 

 and cultivated profitably and with pleasure. I went into it 

 in the dark. I have a little vineyard of three or four hun- 

 dred vines. I began eight or nine years ago. My neighbors, 

 although they encouraged it, rather laughed after I got 

 started. They said, " Well, I guess Slade has got something 

 he will be glad to get out of," and I did not know but I 

 should, too. I selected a gravelly knoll, planted a hedge 

 around it, and cultivated my vines. And h.re I wish to say 



