178 THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE, 



Weller considers this as the true American system of train- 

 ing the vine. The principle of allowing the vine to spread 

 and range freely, during summer, is, undoubtedly, correct, 

 as applied to the American species, and it is what I have 

 recommended for many years. But the system of training 

 up the vine by posts, and then spreading them on flat frame- 

 work, six or eight feet high from the earth, is as much a Eu- 

 ropean plan as the training of them to sticks, &c. I have 

 seen many vineyards thus trained, in Italy, and other coun- 

 tries.* 



In speaking of the great size of the vine, he says : "I 

 measured to-day, a Scuppernong, fourteen years old from 

 planting, and it covers an area whose diameter is fifty feet. 

 Another runs thirty feet on scaffolding, and then ascends an 

 aspen tree, spreading over its branches to the height of about 

 forty feet ; the tree full of grapes. A vine in the lower part 

 of this state, near the Scuppernong Island, in the Roanoke, 

 whence this grape and its name originated, produces its an- 

 nual yield of five barrels of wine, I am most credibly in- 

 formed. 



" The berries of this grape are very large. I have fre- 

 quently measured selected ones, and found them to be three 

 and a half, and some few, four inches round. They are more 

 easily gathered than other kinds. A large sheet, with poles 

 fastened to two sides, is held under the canopy, and a third 

 person shakes the canopy above, with a forked pole, and all 

 the ripe grapes fall into the sheet, and the green ones remain 

 on. They are ripening here about two months ; and that pe- 

 riod ensures successive gatherings, and the most delicious of 

 grape fruit. It is a peculiarly southern grape ; and for the 

 south it is, doubtless, the best grape in the world, considered 

 in all respects. I learn this grape does well everywhere 



* " The vineyards are much more beautiful than the German fields of stakes. The 

 vines grow over a frame, higher than the head, supported, through tlie whole field, 

 on stone pillars. They interlace and form a complete leafy screen, while the clusters 

 hang below." — Page 237. This was on the Italian side of the Alps. Views A-Foot, 

 by J. Bayard Taylor. New York, 184<;. 



