20 



REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 



GRAPE VINERIES. 



The cultivation of the foreign grape was once thought to be 

 the nice point in horticultural practice, but the success which 

 has attended its cultivation where it has received the practical 

 judgment and care which is necessary in the culture of any 

 plant requiring, as this does with us, an artificial climate, has 

 dispelled the mystery which was thought to attend its culture. 

 Experience has proved that no crop is more sure, and that 

 there is no luxury more within the means of the classes in 

 moderate circumstances than this; and the time will come 

 when the cheap cold vinery will be considered indispensable 

 to every good family garden. In the line of the small fruits, 

 the grape fills a larger space in the season than either the 

 strawberry, raspberry, currant or blackberry, lasting, with 

 proper management, from the first of September until winter, 

 and it is the universal favorite of the whole season. 



The vineries of Charles B. Shaw, Thomas Barrows, and 

 Ira Cleveland, Esqr's, all of Dedham, were entered for our 

 inspection. These houses have been under the general super- 

 vision of Mr. Robert Watt, of West Roxbury, from their first 

 start, and they attest his superior skill in their management. 

 The house of Mr. Shaw was built in 1851, and is consequently 

 sixteen years old. The remarkable success attending this 

 house, it never having failed to produce a full crop of well 

 ripened fruit, induces us to present to the society Mr. Watt's 

 own account of its management. 



" The house is sixty feet long and twenty feet wide ; the 

 borders all on the outside, twenty feet wide and three feet deep 

 in its whole length, and composted of top-spit of pasture 

 manure one-quarter, and three tons of bone thoroughly mixed. 

 There are nineteen vines of the following varieties : Ham- 

 burghs, (the Black, Victoria, and No. 16,) Chasselas of Foun- 

 tainbleau and Zinfandale. Two years old wlien planted, small 

 but finely rooted ; the first season they made a growth of 

 about twenty feet. In the fall they were cut back to three 

 eyes ; the second year they made fine canes, reaching the top 

 of the rafter. At the fall pruning they were cut back to about 



