22 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the second generation, 1 got a good grape; and from that grape 1 

 have seedUngs still better; and from them again, I have seedlings 

 growing; and I think that I have established the fact that the time 

 ■will come when out of these successive reproductions you will 

 have grapes as good as you desire; grapes as good, perhaps, as 

 those of any part of the world; hardy, perfectly adapted to our 

 climate, and that may be grown in field culture as you grow any 

 other crop." 



In 1854 the vines were sold at $5 each and $40 a dozen to the 

 trade; and the following year they were sold at $3 each and $24 a 

 dozen to the trade. Such papers as the Ohio Farmer, Horticul- 

 turist, New York Tribune, Country Gentleman, Boston Transcript, 

 and the Boston Journal gave it very flattering notices and spoke 

 very highly of it in 1854. 



The first season's sales amounted to $3200, a very large sum for 

 a new fruit in those days, but within a short time every nurseryman 

 in the country had a stock of it and the sale slipped from the hands 

 of the originator, bringing much money to others and but little to 

 him. While Mr. Bull could give to his vines the best care, and 

 while he could perform the hardest work at home among the scenes 

 -^ie'loved so well, yet, like a true genius, he was unable to make a 

 business success out of a discovery which was to mean so much to' 

 his country. 



At a meeting of the Farmers' Club held in Concord, October, 

 5, 1854, a committee of the following-named men was appointed 

 and called the "Committee on the Concord grape": Joseph 

 Reynolds, W. W. Wheildon, S. G. Wheeler, William D. Brown, 

 and James A. Brown, who reported that "they have attended to 

 their agreeable duty assigned to them, and that, in their opinion, 

 the Concord grape possesses in a high degree the essential properties 

 of a perfect grape; beauty of color and form, richness, fragrance 

 and flavor, and abundant juiciness. Its skin is thin and remarkably 

 free from astringency. The vine is a free grower and abundant 

 bearer and very hardy in its habits, and what renders it peculiarly 

 valuable, in our New England climate, is the fact that it ripens 

 from two to three weeks earlier than any other good quality grape 

 with which we are acquainted." 



"They congratulate INIr. Bull, the producer of this seedling 



