60 CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



benches, and manuring every third year, may be offset 

 against the cuttings. 



Mr. Yeatman, who keeps an account of his vineyard ex- 

 penditures, concurs in the accuracy of this estimate. 



COST OF MAKING THE WINE. 



This will again depend on the force that the family can 

 turn into the vineyard. But when everything has to be done 

 by hired labor, the writer can state from experience, that 

 gathering the grapes, and pressing them, and filling the juice 

 into casks, ready for fermentation, will cost, for an average 

 crop, ^25 to ^30 per acre. 



Mr. LoNGWORTH remarks : — " The cultivation of the grape 

 for wine will be profitable where persons do their own work. 



"It is seldom that any farming pays well where there is 

 much hirino- of hands. Our German emiorants can cultivate 

 the grape to most profit, for the gi'eater part of the work in 

 the vineyard is performed by their wives and daughters, 

 without interfering with household affairs. A greater profit 

 would accrue to a man of observation and skill, who would 

 devote much time to the subject, be certain to have clean 

 casks, gather his grapes at the proper moment, use great care 

 in picking, selecting, and pressing, and a clean press, a cool 

 cellar, care and skill in the fermentation, racking at the proper 

 time, and always keeping the casks full, never to bottle it till 

 four or five years of age, and never to sell any wine with his 

 own name, in seasons when the wine is not of the best quality." 



PROBABLE PRODUCT PER ACRE. 



This of course will vary with the season, and with the 

 number of vines to the acre. 



At the distance of 3 by 6 ft. 2,420 vines are planted in an 

 acre. They will yield, in fair seasons, 300 to 400 gallons ; in 

 very good years more. A probable average, for eight or ten 

 years, with but little rot, would be about 250 gallons — and 



