INTRODUCTION. O 



Do not Luild a grapery vmder the erroneous impression, 

 that, having done so, and planted the vines, jou have secured 

 to yourself, without further labor, a bountiful supply of fruit ; 

 if you do so, you must be sadly disappointed. 



Probably there is no plant so sure of yielding an annual 

 crop as the grape, under right management ; but this is abso- 

 lutely necessary, to ensure success. 



The attempt has been made to give plain rules, which may 

 be easily understood, and the practical operation of which can 

 be carried out with as little labor as the proper cultivation of 

 the grape, under glass, will permit. 



The following directions are intended for those who may 

 desire to cultivate this fruit, for their own pleasure or con- 

 venience, and do not wish to incur the expense of a regularly 



at sunrise, you must have the flues, or water-pipes, hot ; as soon as the sun shines, 

 as it frequently does in winter as well as in the summer, with great brilliancy upon 

 the glass, the heat rapidly accumulates, and the mercury is soon at 90° or 100°. 

 T*he temperature in the open air may be at zero, or from that point up to 20°. Now, 

 here is the difficulty : if the top lights, or any other ventilators are opened so as to 

 allow a current of this cold air to flow over the vines, the fruit thus exposed will 

 perish, and if you sufl'er this very high temperature, when 80° or 85° is the highest 

 point you should allow, the vines will be unduly excited, aaid consequently very 

 liable to a check, when the temperature falls. The foliage may not show, at the 

 time, any bad effects from this cold air, but soon the young bunches will turn yellow 

 and drop. " What is the matter with my vines ?" (is a question which is often put 

 to me,) " they pushed very strong, and showed fine bunches of fruit, but the most of 

 them have dried up and dropped ; " they have at some time received a check to the 

 flow of the sap, and the effect of this, in the first seventy days of forcing, will always 

 be the loss of the crop. "Having small ventilators, and opening the lights but very 

 little, with every precaution that can be used, under the circumstances, to remedy 

 and prevent the too much heat, and the admission of a current of the cold air, is the 

 only way to avoid any ill effects from such causes. 



Mr. A. Forsyth, in a diary of the culture of the grape in a forcing-house, at East 

 Barnet, in Herts, published in Loudon's Magazine, page 548, vol. 10th, makes these 

 remarks relative to the weather : " December the 15lh, weather favorable ; the nights 

 often 50° or 52° ; seldom under 40°. We have had only four frosts ; the most in- 

 tense, as low as 26°." A diary of the forcing-house kept by myself, on the fifteen 

 first days of December, has five or six days when the cold is said to be very severe, 

 below zero or about it ; and several days, when it was mild by day, the mercury fell 

 to 16° and 18'-' at night. In any degree of cold at night, if the heating arrangements 

 are suitable, the temperature, with proper care, can be easily regulated. That there 

 is a vast difference in the attention required when the mercury ranges from 20° to 

 48° above zero, or when it is as low as 6° or 10° below, any one having had experi- 

 ence in such matters will readily admit. 



