THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 239 



ten years, has been forced in December, and has never failed 

 to produce a crop of fruit. This season of 1848, the 

 fruit was as fine as it ever has been ; the bunches, many of 

 them, weighing one and two pounds each ; the berries were 

 large, and well colored. The second border was made a few 

 years after the first ; the manures used, were similar to the 

 above ; but, instead of stones, the bottom of the border was 

 paved with bones, and well covered with them ; the vines 

 have always done well, and ripened good crops of fine fruit. 

 The third border was paved, at the bottom, with stones, as 

 whole bones could not be obtained. The manures, in this bor- 

 der, were entirely from the barn-yard, from horses and oxen ; 

 it was very coarse, having much litter and old (Indian) corn- 

 stalks in it ; the soil was the garden loam, which had been 

 freely manured with barn-yard material ; the proportion of 

 manure added, was one half, certainly, and perhaps, rather 

 more. In this border, the vines have made the most rapid 

 growth of any that I have planted : but the fruit produced 

 therein, although very fair, and well colored, is not large, 

 the berries measuring two and a half to three and a half 

 inches round, for Hamburghs ; while, in the houses, where 

 bones and slaughter-house manures, or the carcasses of ani- 

 mals are added to the compost, the harries measure from 

 three to four inches in circumference. 



By far the largest part of my borders were made, since 

 the above, in 1843. Slaughter-house manures, bones, the 

 carcasses of animals, old mortar and bricks, oyster-shells, 

 horse and cow manure, old leather and loam, were added in 

 considerable quantities. I have not discovered any reason 

 for wishing to change the compost. At the end of the house, 

 in a space used for the furnace, no manure was added on the 

 outside, as the street of the city was here, the soil was a 

 good yellow loam, and, on the street, covered with gravel, to 

 notice the difference in the fruiting and growing of the vines, 

 when situated in this unprepared soil, as compared with the 

 compost above, I planted four vines, so situated that three of 



