176 THE CULTUKE OF THE GRAPE. 



each way. The scions (having been kept back, in a cool 

 place, from sprouting,) were Weller's Halifax and Norton's 

 Virginia Seedhng. Thej are kinds I esteem next to the 

 Scuppernong, as free from the propensity to rot, and in other 

 respects good. 



" It is the uniform result of long experience, that, if graft- 

 ing is effected on stocks procured or dug up from the woods, 

 success, with due pains-taking, will surely follow, if done at 

 any time from the complete fall of leaves in autumn, until 

 late in spring, or even summer, when the scion can be kept 

 back from sprouting. But if the graft be on stocks not dug 

 up, or stands where it is to remain, it must be done in the 

 fall, or early part of winter, to insure success. In this way, 

 I readily changed my foreign, and other rotting kinds, into 

 unexceptionable native varieties. No clay, or any other cov- 

 ering of the grafted part, is necessary in grafting grape vines 

 even with the ground. All that is to be done, is to saw off 

 your stock and put in your scion, (with two or three buds 

 thereon,) wedge-fashion, as in cleft-grafting fruit trees, and 

 then draw earth around a few inches high, leaving one or 

 two buds above ground ; or, where the stock is very large, 

 and inconvenient to split, I have made a gimlet hole, and in- 

 serted the scion, spoil-fashion, and then drawn the earth 

 around. 



" But, to avoid disappointment, the vintner should be aware 

 that more trouble and attention is required in the grafting 

 process, to pull off sprouts from the old stock, as they spring 

 forth to rob the graft, than in the process itself; and this is 

 far more the case in grafting to stocks standing in their orig- 

 inal place, than in those procured from the woods. To com- 

 pensate for this, however, the growth from the former is 

 much greater than from the latter, viz : eight or ten feet a 

 season, in the one case, but thirty feet, not uncommonly, in 

 the other. Grafts often bear some fine clusters the first sea- 

 son of growth, and pretty considerably the second." Mr. Wel- 

 ler is of the opinion, " that, while American vineyards far ex- 



