26o Treatment of the American Grape -Vine. 



seven feet high, and they were soon completely covered with the vines. 

 For a time, he gathered good crops, — once, as much as six tons from the 

 hundred and sixty vines planted on that acre of ground. But, as the roots 

 grew rank in a soil of such excessiv^e richness. Nature employed its forces 

 in endeavoring to restore the equilibrium between vine and root ; and the 

 result in later years has been a redundancy of wood and foliage, and but 

 little fruit. 



During subsequent years, as the methods pursued in other vineyards 

 became known, the wide planting in the McKay vineyard was the subject 

 of considerable criticism ; and this was not without its effect upon those 

 who afterwards established vineyards in the valley. And though never 

 tolerating the plan of close-planting, yet the Naples people did lessen the 

 distances, in many instances, to twelve feet by twelve. But the example 

 of high training, however, was followed ; and the general height of the 

 trellises is from six to six feet and a half. With the room thus accorded 

 to the vine to grow, the necessity for summer-pruning was scarcely ever 

 felt ; nor, indeed, was it introduced until a few years since, when Germans 

 found their way into the valley, and planted vineyards. But the contrast 

 between the fruiting qualities of theirs and their neighbors' vines soon 

 caused them to discontinue, or to greatly modify, the extent to which they 

 practised that system of pruning. 



In connection with the facts I have stated, I will add that the vineyards 

 of Naples Valley, notwithstanding the excessive rain-fall of the summer, 

 are to-day more healthy and better loaded with fruit than any I have seen 

 on an extended tour through the vine districts of New-York State and the 

 shore of Lake Erie ; and, though there was some rot among the Catawbas, 

 there was not enough to prevent a fair crop. 



It would seem to those familiar with the general practice in planting 

 vineyards, that a distance between the vines of twelve feet by twelve, requir- 

 ing but three hundred and two vines to the acre, would certainly be sufficient 

 to satisfy the most extreme advocates of wide planting. But experience 

 at Naples Valley has shown that even a greater spread on the trellis may 

 be necessary to insure the production of fruit. It is a common remark 

 among practical vineyard-cultivators, that for the rank-growing varieties of 

 grape-vines, like the Isabella, Catawba, Concord, Diana, and Clinton, a 



