16 



prove essentially valuable, enabling almost every cottager to produce enough 

 for " home consumption," and though some of the seedlings may not rival 

 the Isabella in flavor, still the Committee think there are five or six varieties 

 which 7/101/ prove sufficiently early in ripening to enable a sure culture, 

 where the Catawba and Isabella have in vain been attempted. 



The " Concord," a seedling raised by E. W. Bull of Concord, Mass., has 

 attracted much attention during the past year, and believing you desired 

 all the information which we could bring to bear on this one variety, the 

 chairman signified to Mr. Bull, that an invitation from him to the Committee 

 to visit his premises, with full privilege to examine and scrutinize all and 

 every fact at hand, (which might bear on the subject,) would prove accept- 

 able to the Committee — and in the event of his seedlings proving valuable or 

 not, the Committee, one and all, believe in the honesty of Mr. Bull. There 

 was on this occasion, as on all others, a modest bearing, free and frank an- 

 swers to each and every inquiry from the Committee. 



Mr. Bull responded to our request, and on the 7th September all the 

 Committee having been duly notified, visited Mr. Bull's garden at Concord, 

 The locality of the vines is on a southeast exposure, protected on the north 

 and northwest by a hill ; the soil sandy. The first vines examined had 

 received a coating of clay to a part of the vines. On this the growth was 

 twelve feet on the average. On other vines was superadded a coating of 

 horse manure. The bunches averaged seven inches in length. The next 

 vine examined had been manured with animal manure, viz., two dead 

 calves. On this vine the bunches were from six and a half to thiiteen 

 and a half inches in circumference, while the berries were two and a quar- 

 ter inches in circumference, though not so highly colored as on other vines 

 where no animal manure had been applied. Well water alone had been 

 applied since the spring manuring. The vine was allowed to mature sixty 

 bunches, many of which were, in the estimation of those conversant in 

 the growth of the Black Hamburg, deemed to weigh a pound, if of that 

 variety. 



Another set of vines had received one peck of guano to fifteen hundred 

 and eighty-four square feet of ground. In the rear of a row of vines, one 

 hundred and twenty-seven feet in length, Mr. Bull had placed barrels, 

 allowing one barrel to every two vines, which had been filled with leaves 

 collected indiscriminately from the adjoining woods, well pressed down, 

 on the top of which he put a peck of wood ashes to neutralize the acidity, 

 and tlirough each barrel leached a bucket of water twice a week previous 

 to the first of June. On a portion of the vines the grapes appeared ripe, and 

 those tested the following Saturday were in condition. 



Of its seasonableness and productiveness the Committee are favorably 

 impressed. Mr. Bull had an Isabella vine at tlie southwest end of his resi- 

 dence, on which the berries were just beginning to color, which he con- 

 sidered as occupying a more favorable locality for ripening tlian the 

 former. 



The Committee would have been pleased to have found growing side by 

 side, the Concord and Isabella, as more surely testing the ripening. Should 



