326 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



tender and need protection ; in that case tliey would recommend 

 pruning in October, as soon as the leaf falls, that the wood may 

 heal before the covering of the vine in November. Directions 

 for planting, training and cropping will be found in the early 

 sheets of this volume. 



The theory of aggregate heat, as well as that of isothermal 

 lines, is an uncertain guide. Wherever the grape will ripen 

 within the period of the intense summer heats necessary to its 

 perfect development, there you can grow grapes to perfection. 

 This proposition of course implies an early grape for northern 

 latitudes — one which will ripen before the early frosts of autumn 

 have robbed the soil and atmosphere of the necessary heat ; but 

 we have already grapes which ripen in August, and which will 

 ripen, therefore, wherever Indian corn will ripen — that is to say, 

 in most parts of New England. Plant the grape in your sunniest 

 nooks, your warmest exposures ; it is a child of the sun and 

 loves heat. If we should be asked what element was most 

 necessary to success in grape-growing, we should say heat. 



No crop is more profitable than the grape. It has yielded, in 

 various parts of the country, -12,000 to the acre. Do you think 

 this an extravagant crop ? Reduce it by one-half, and the 

 market price of the remainder by one-half, and you still have 

 ^500 per acre ; and this on your light and poor soils, which will 

 not give you a remunerating crop of grain, or even grass, — an 

 important consideration ; for whereas all other crops require 

 manure, of which our farmers have too little at all times, this 

 valuable and profitable crop does not require it. 



The cost of establishing an acre of grapes, as we have shown 

 in former reports, is less than $300 per acre, where everything 

 is purchased. Under ordinary circumstances, the first crop, 

 which may be gathered the third year, pays all expenses. The 

 cost of culture is about thirty days' work per acre — say forty- 

 five dollars. The second crop, in the fourth year after planting 

 — about 7,000 pounds in round numbers — will yield an income 

 of $700, at ten cents per pound, which is one-half the price for 

 which the Concord grape sold at wholesale this year. 



If you have any fears of glutting the market for the fruit — a 

 fear which we do not entertain, you have the alternative of wine- 

 making. Or selling the fruit for that purpose. Let us see what 

 would be the result of this method. 



