CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 15 



single season ; but the crop is not as large as formerly. 

 The main cane is a hundred and twenty feet long, and 

 covers the entire roof of the houses, which is seventy feet 

 long and thirty feet wide. 



In this country, until recently, the largest vine was sup- 

 posed to be at Burlington, N. J. Two feet from the ground, 

 it measured, in 1858, six feet two and a half inches in girth : 

 four feet high, it is about six inches less. On pacing the 

 circumference covered by the branches, it was found to 

 exceed a hundred feet. It has never borne a grape in the 

 memory of a lady now ninety-eight years old, to whom it 

 was a wonder in her youth. In the " Horticulturist," vol. 

 i. p. 530, it is described as standing on a farm called West 

 Hill, two miles from Burlington, and measuring six feet 

 one inch round the trunk at three feet from the ground, 

 and at ten feet high it is three feet in circumference. " Its 

 giant folds run over and cover four trees, one of which is 

 a full-sized oak, and the others are quite large." But it 

 was reserved for our Golden State to eclipse the world in 

 natural products. The " Alta Californian " thus describes it : 

 "At Monticito, four miles from Santa Barbara, there is a 

 grape-vine, probably the largest in the world. Its dimen- 

 sions and yield would be incredible, were it not that my 

 informant is a man of veracity, and speaks from personal 



