SOIL FOR A VINEYARD SEEDLINGS. 85 



Such soil, if it does produce a growth of wood, yet ;auses 

 the grapes to rot. 



Another soil, unsuited to the grape, is that with a surface 

 of good, rich mould underlaid by a stratum of fine, bright, 

 yellow sand, clammy and adhesive. This is well calculated 

 to deceive, but it has no strength below the mould, and the 

 vines invariably become weak and of small growth. Such 

 lands may be improved by lime and ashes. But the soil upon 

 which I rely, and from the experience of seven or eight years, 

 place the greatest confidence, is of a grayish black, breaking 

 up into small square lumps in cultivation, deep, and running 

 into a reddish yellow subsoil, friable like the surface in work- 

 ing, and generally resting on limestone rock; in such soil, 

 with proper cultivation, I have never known the vine to fail. 

 As to locahty, I prefer a southern, western, or eastern aspect, 

 in the order here named, to a northern, but consider the soil 

 of the riffki selection of far more importance. 



Kespectfully, John Williamson. 



March 15th, 1852. 



(From the Western Horticultural Review.) 

 ON GRAPE SEEDLINGS, BY N. RIEHL, OF ST. LOUIS, JAN. 1852. 



The method which is most commonly followed in raising 

 grape seedlings, is to sow the seed in the open ground, then 

 select the finest or most vigorous plants and set them out in 

 rows, where they remain until they come into bearing. Ex- 

 perience has now shown that these seedlings are generally 

 inferior in quality to the Catawba, or other sorts from which 

 the seed was taken. Why such is the result, may be princi- 

 pally attributed to the following reasons : Beside the ten- 

 dency which the grape has, when grown from the seed, to go 

 back to the natural wild state, like all other varieties of cul- 

 tivated fruit, it also, like the strawberry, has a tendency to 

 become dioecious by the abortion of male or female organs in 

 the flowers. Those plants may be recognized the first season 



