258 Treatment of the American Grape -Vine. 



their cultivation in vineyards. In many localities, there was a desire to 

 try the experiment ; but the people had only indefinite and crude ideas 

 of the manner in which vineyards should be laid out and managed. Hence 

 information was sought of those who had been in the vine districts of 

 Europe, and especially of the Germans and French who had taken up their 

 residence in America, and who could state, with more or less intelligence 

 and particularity, the methods pursued in cultivating the vine in Europe. 



Close planting is a marked peculiarity of the vineyard-culture of Ger- 

 many, the vines being usually placed three feet asunder in each direction ; 

 making nearly five thousand vines per acre. In North-Eastern France the 

 distance is scarcely over a foot, and nearly forty thousand vines are required 

 to plant an acre. The reason ascribed for pursuing this method is the 

 thinness of the soil, and the consequent necessity of circumscribing the 

 growth of both root and vine ; and, in the Champagne district, the latter is 

 never allowed to attain proportions beyond those of a shrub tied to a 

 small stake. 



Having only the methods in vogue in the vine-bearing districts of North- 

 ern Europe as examples, our earliest vineyards were generally laid out and 

 managed in conformity therewith. Mr. Longworth planted his first vine- 

 yards of Catawbas only three feet apart in each direction ; and, though he 

 subsequently increased the distance to four feet, I am informed that he 

 regarded that as the extreme limit of departure which should be made 

 from the European models. At North East, Penn., Mr. William Griffith 

 planted a large vineyard with vines four feet by six. At Westfield, N.Y., a 

 German has a vineyard planted three feet by three. Buchanan, one of the 

 earliest, and Mead, one of the latest writers on grape-cuUure, recommend 

 four by six feet as the extreme distances ; and I do not now recollect any 

 text-book which suggests a distance greater than six feet in either direction 

 for planting in vineyards.* 



But, however closely our vines were planted in early vineyard-cultivation, 

 the experience of practical cultivators soon demonstrated that the American 

 vine required more room for growth, if the best results were to be attained ; 

 and, from three feet by three, the distance has, from time to time, been in- 

 creased, until, now, eight feet by eight is more commonly adopted than any 

 other, where the vines are to be trained to wire trellis. 



• See an article by J. M. Merrick, jun., in this Journal for October, 1868, vol. iv. pp. 242-244. — Ed. 



