THE CULTURE OP THE GRAPE. 223 



obtained eleven prizes for grapes, at three shows, and, last 

 year, seven prizes at two shows. In fifteen years, I have re- 

 ceived sixty-four prizes for grapes. Mr. Roberts and I do 



an extent that will surprise you 5 on the other hand, if they are over-cropped, they 

 will (may they have been ever so promising at the beginning of the summer,) remain 

 with the berries small and loose, and entirely surpassed in weight and every desira- 

 ble quality, by the neighboring vine, whose bunches, in the earlier part of the season, 

 were cast quite into the shade by these. 



By the statements of gardeners, who have given accounts of the crops they have 

 produced on their vines, it would be supposed that fifty pounds was an average 

 yield. (I am of opinion, that the weight, in these cases, was estimated, not real.) 

 Admitting this weight to be real, then the yield from the seventy feet house, (the 

 vines planted as is customary in England, four feet apart,) would be, on the rafters 

 and back wall, twelve hundred and seventj'-five pounds, about one third part more 

 than would be produced by my plan. If, as stated above, my vines are capable of 

 producing a larger crop, the berries and bunches will swell proportionablj^, and the 

 average will be greater, bringing the difference to less than one fourth part. 



The vine trained as the Hampton Court one would cover all the glass, and it 

 would be useless to attempt to grow grapes on the back wall ; the wood would not 

 ripen sufficiently, and, in consequence, would not produce fruit. If space were left 

 for the sun to shine on the wall and to ripen the wood, the crop would be lessened in 

 proportion, on the rafter trellis. Mr. Cherry (see his statement of the vines, at Esh- 

 ton Hall,) limits his crop, per vine, to twenty pounds on an average, back and front 

 vines alike. His object, unquestionably, is, to produce high-flavored fruit, and he is 

 the only English gardener, that I remember to have read, that speaks of so small an 

 amount, and whose practice, in this respect, makes any approach to the product of 

 the vine in the most famous districts of grape culture, on the continent of Europe. I 

 have, sometimes, when a vine has been over-lu.xuriaut, allowed it to ripen one hun- 

 dred bunches, to check its excessive growth, and with the desired effect; but this 

 was with the very strong growing kinds, as Verdelho and Black Portugal ; it would 

 have been seriously injurious to most varieties. Frequently, I have been requested to 

 go and see vines loaded with fruit, and have found forty or fifty large bunches on a 

 young vine ; they were always looking well until after the seeding time, and then 

 came the shrivel and shanking, and another disease, the effect of over-cropping, in 

 which the berries have a soft, cold feeling when touched, just as they do when 

 shrivelled, but no appearance of this on the stems. The fate of these grapes has al- 

 ways been similar, the loss of two thirds or three quarters of the fruit, with scarcely 

 a decent bunch. In Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, vol. 4, New Series, at the 

 277th page, is an article on the grape, taken from the Gardeners' Journal, 1848, p. 

 182, in which the writer's object was, as he states, to do justice to a Mr. Gerrie's 

 good management of the vine. As I am a disbeliever in the vines annually produ- 

 cing forty or fifty, or, as some writers say, sixty and eighty pounds of fruit, for any 

 length of years, — and as this gentleman furnishes one of these wonderful stories, and 

 also supplies the facts contradicting his own statements, and, at the same time, gives 

 confirmation to my opinion expressed before, that these weights are, usually, by esti- 

 mation, cmd not by actual balance, and will show to the inexperienced in these mat- 

 ters, how easily people may be deceived, when they do not calculate for themselves, 

 and how readily such a statement, after once being in print, is circulated without ex- 

 amination, — I shall quote a large part of it here ; — 



