156 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the seed of the hybrid is almost certain to go back to the type 

 of the strongest parent, the wilding. 



SOIL. 



Light and warm soils are best suited to the cultivation of the 

 grape. This rule seems to be of nearly universal application, 

 for even in sunny France — the land of vines — such soils give the 

 finest grapes, the choicest wines. " The strata of the most 

 valued vineyards being dry, gravelly or sandy, and exempt from 

 that rich loam which engenders a rank and coarse vegetation." 

 — (Denman.) 



The famous " Margaux district is equally calcareous, flinty 

 and sandy ; the wine there raised is remarkable for its fragrant 

 delicacy." — (Ibid.) 



The composition of the soil of the famous vineyard of Chateau 

 Mararaux is as follows : 



100.000 



In these soils the grape attains its best development — well 

 ripened and close-grained wood and fruit-buds, and the juices of 

 the fruit more concentrated and rich in aroma and flavor, than 

 is the case when grown on richer soils, which are not only not 

 necessary to the successful culture of the grape, as has been 

 supposed, but really unfavorable, inducing a too luxuriant 

 growth of wood, which, in our northern climate, seldom ripens 

 perfectly ; and the fruit-buds which it forms arc seldom mature. 



The gravelly hillsides which abound in our Massachusetts, 

 bearing stinted herbage or thin woods, and sandy plains which 

 bear only an occasional crop of rye, if planted with the grape 

 will 1)0 found to yield more profitable returns than other crops 

 on the best land of the farm. Two of my colleagues have this 



