96 APPENDIX. 



(From Cist's Advertiser.) 

 GRAPE CULTURE NEAR READING, PA. 



The folloAving letter from the Reading correspondent of the 

 Philadelphia Ledger, invites and deserves a careful perusal in 

 this region, on various accounts : 



In the first place, many interesting and valuable facts for 

 our vine growers are contributed from Berks county experi- 

 ence. There can be no doubt that much of the character of 

 grapes is derived from the subsoil, and the suggestion on this 

 point, will be worth attending to. 



Passing from solids to fluids, I would say a few words on 

 the cultivation of the grape vines *' in these diggin's." The 

 phrase is literary correct ; for the vineyards here are all un- 

 dermined by diggings for iron, and their soil copiously inter- 

 spersed with large fragments of heavy iron ore. I had no 

 idea that such labor could be performed, as has here been ex- 

 pended on the culture of the grape ! Mr. John Fehr, our 

 industrious vintner, of whose wines you will have received a 

 sample, has dug down his whole vineyard to the depth of 

 three feet, to plant the Isabella and Catawba grapes, which 

 now yield beautifully. Some five or six hundred cart-loads 

 iron ore had first to be removed from the soil, before the vines 

 could be planted. 



The attempt to cultivate exotic grapes has utterly failed. 

 In 1839, Mr. George Lauer imported some seventeen thou- 

 sand grape vines, comprising nine difi"erent sorts, of the best 

 European vines ; but they all perished from the vicissitudes 

 of the climate. Previously, in 1831, Mr. William Tibler 

 planted the Isabella grape, indigenous to South Carolina, 

 which produces largely and is less sensitive to changes of 

 temperature, and from which, most of the Reading wine now 

 entering into consumption is made. 



The Catawba grape, from North Carolina, was only intro- 

 duced in 1835, by Mr. Gottfried Pflieger, but is now about 



