100 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



abundant crops. With grapes I have had some experience and 

 have at present about seventy nice vines, all the way from three to 

 seven years old ; nearly one-half of them are the Concord, and for 

 the past two years the earlj' frosts have taken them before they 

 were ripe. It is called the grape for the million, and is a fine sort 

 when well ripened. I have some varieties that I thinli are much 

 oetter suited to our climate. The Champion is one of t^hem ; it will 

 ripen every 3^ear, sometimes in August. It is not of the finest 

 quality, but a very fair grape, a strong, healthy grower, and as pro- 

 ductive as the Concord. Its chief point is earliness, and since I 

 have grown them have never failed to ripen. They are very hardy, 

 the vines being tied up to the trellis all winter and the wood as a 

 general thing green and uninjured, sound to the end of the branches. 

 There are some others that will ripen with us every year ; the 

 Janesville is one of them. I name the Champion first as I consider 

 it of better quality. These two ripen at about the same time, from 

 the last of August until the middle of September. The Brighton is 

 not as early as its patrons have claimed ; it is not hardy, but an 

 excellent grape. The Lady is a fine white sort that ripens every 

 year, quite productive, and one of the very best. The Delaware is 

 excellent, of fine flavor, productive, and ripens before the Concord. 

 The Salem is very good, while the Hartford is a week earlier ; this 

 sort drops from the vines when ripened, which is a bad fault. 

 Moore's Early is a promising variety of large size, early, of fair 

 quality and quite productive. The cultivation of the grape would 

 pa}^ in many localities no doubt, but they are sold very low in the 

 height of the season ; good fruit, much better than we can produce 

 of all of the choicest table varieties, when natives would have no 

 sale at all on account of their inferior quality. If our season was 

 two weeks longer it would make a vast difference ; as it is, fine fruit 

 can be brought to our very door long before ours commences to 

 change color. 



And now, ladies and gentlemen, I will draw my article to a close. 

 I hardly dare to advise the general cultivation of small fruits on a 

 large scale for all localities as a money making business, for in 

 many places it has been overdone. The decline in, and the low 

 prices received for the past three or four years has driven many out 

 of it. At one time the product of thirty acres of land set with 

 strawberries were being sent to market from Knox county alone, 

 one of the smallest in the State. At present I doubt if there are 



