CONCOED. 



This is a very vigorous and healthy grower, and generally bears abundantly, h 

 ripens ten days before the Isabella, and its leaves are much less disposed to mildew 

 and sun-scald than those of that variety. It always retains a large, fibrous, unripened 

 acid center, between which and the skin it is very sweet, but never pure or pleasant,- 

 or refreshing in its flavor, and always has a rank odor that is very offensive to most 

 lovers of good grapes. It will have some value as a market fruit from its size, but it 

 hacks that attractive beauty which is indicative of goodness to persons who are ac- 

 quainted with grapes, and falls badly from the bunch soon after picking, unless it is 

 taken long before ripe. It is only surpassed in hardiness by the Delawxire, and ripens 

 at the same time as Diana, but is very far below it in quality, and is unfit for wine, 



DELAWAHE. 



The Delaware Grape has so much more than redeemed its early promises of excellence, 

 and taken its place so far in advance of all others, as our leading variety, suprising even 

 its warmest friends by its vigorous habit as well as by the quality and beauty of its fruit, 

 that remarks concerning it would be quite superfluous, if wrong notions had not gone 

 forth, winged with authority to carry them wherever the character of the vine would be 

 expected to find its reputation. It has been said to be unproductive. This the vine 

 itself has every where disproved. Even the most dwarfed specimens that excessive 

 tenuity of propagation has ever sent out, have not failed to give early and abundant 

 specimens of fruit, but, like the vines, dwarfed and imperfect. It has also been called a 

 feeble grower, and the apparent evidence of it is too frequently met with, sometimes 

 caused by want of care in the purchaser, and oftener by the bad quality of the plant 

 chargeable justly to the propagator, and sometimes perhaps a small plant has been pur- 

 chased because it was preferable to none, which has been frequently the alternative, in 

 consequence of scarcity of vines. 



I state a foct that is easily demonstrable in the grounds of my neighbors, as well as in 

 my own, that with this variety feeble growth is but an accident, and a uniform, vigorous, 

 healthy growth under favorable circumstances the universal laio. Vines one year old al 

 planting (of my own growing) have, the second year, when only three shoots have been 

 suffered to grow, given an average of sixteen feet, and when from twelve to twenty 

 shoots are grown, the range is from six to twelve feet of strong, short-jointed wood 

 This is but the ordinary healthy growth of the vine — shoots of twenty-three feet and 

 upwards, and measuring two inches in circumference, are in sight from my table as I am 

 now writing. They are grown in rather pervious soil, of only fair fertility, and worked 

 three feet deep. I would here remark for those not fully indoctrinated, that the deep 

 working is not for the purpose of obtaining a rampant growth. That can be more easily 

 obtained by watering with liquid manure on ground that has been worked to the depth 

 of only one foot, and profusely enriched. But this produces a forced and unhealthy 

 growth, and thereby forces upon the plant, or renders it obnoxious to, all those ills that 

 work so disastrously, but which are not the proper inheritance of the vine. The evenly 

 sustained growth on which full development depends, and, through it, the best results in 

 fruit, can only be obtained, where each day's work throughout the season is fully and 

 symmetrically done up. On ground thus deeply worked, vines know nothing of excess- 

 ive moisture or drouth, and at the end of the season are ready to enjoy rather than sufter 

 from the winter's rest, without which there can be no fruitfulness. 



The Delaware grape, as first seen by Mr. Thomson, had been long suffering 

 from entire neglect, and the transforming influence of judicious attention has wrought a 

 much greater change apparently in the frm'i than in the habit of the vine. It has gTeatly 

 improved in flavor, (rather, its normal characteristics are more fully developed."^ ripens 

 much earlier, and has at least three-folded in size, so that instead of "smnll," it must 

 now be described as medium in size of bunch and berry, and ripening /w??^ three weeks 

 before the Isabella. 



Ixs compact, symmetric bunches, of convenient size, fine mne color, and translucencv 

 constitute a grape of exceeding beauty, which as an ornament for the table is unequalled. 



