158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



essential preliminaries to success. You can make latitude and 

 concentrate lieat, and thus achieve success in spite of tlieory. 



Wherever a grape-vine grows, another may be made to grow ; 

 and I have no doubt we shall have vineyards in all New England. 

 Wherever the intense summer heat can be made to bear upon a 

 vine at the time of the ripening of the grape, the grape is sure to 

 succeed. 



This rule requires the early grape for the short summers of 

 northern latitudes ; but where Indian corn will ripen, there the 

 grape also will ripen ; for we have grapes that ripen in August, 

 and during that month great heats prevail, unless, indeed, heavy 

 rains rob the earth of its accumulated heat, and chill the atmos- 

 phere with shade. But this does not often happen. Lot me tell 

 you a circumstance which illustrates this point. There is a vine 

 growing in Concord, N. H., which was planted, in 1856 or 1857, 

 against the south side of a house with an L which protected the 

 vine against the west wind. The roof of the house came down 

 to within nine or ten feet of the ground, and the vine was 

 carried up over the roof upon a trellis about one foot from it, 

 and covers an immense area. This vine has borne, for two suc- 

 cessive years, the enormous crop of six hundred pounds each 

 year. Notwithstanding the heavy crop, it ri])cned its fruit the 

 first of September, and was of such line quality and size as to 

 sell in the market for fifty cents a pound. This grape is the 

 Concord grape, and the fact of its ripening two weeks earlier 

 than the same vine does with me, proves the value of concen- 

 trated heat and shelter for the vine. The theory of isothermal 

 lines offers a very plausible theory in reference to grape-growing, 

 and it is certainly worth consideration, and of some service. 

 But what I have said about aspect and heat is a sufficient guide 

 to the cultivator. The line upon which the Concord is jilaced 

 by these theorists, passes through Boston, and then south of it. 

 But here is a Concord, in the capital of New Hampshire, which 

 ripens two weeks earlier than the same grape in the latitude of 

 Boston, and in other places in the vicinity of the same city 

 where it is grown. 



PLANTING. 



Most writers on the grape agree that it is necessary to trench 

 the soil to the depth of twenty inches or more before planting 



