ADDITIONAL KEMARKS ON PLANTING. 301 



In contrast to this, may be adduced the steep, 

 gravelly hillside which generally prevails at 

 Hammondsport, where the drift soil has no prac- 

 tical limit to its depth, and where water at the 

 roots is never feared. Their enemy comes to 

 young vines in the form of early drought, and 

 the indications in this case are as deep planting 

 as may consist with the avoidance of what is 

 very indefinitely called " smothering" the plants. 

 Four inches of depth at Kelley's Island would 

 not be more than equaled by eight or ten 

 inches at Pleasant Valley. 



In that remarkable vine district occupying 

 a great part of the shore region of Lake Erie, 

 these two extreme conditions are often found 

 in immediate contiguity, and present a geo- 

 logical study but little less interesting than 

 the Valley of the Walkill. The tenacious 

 clay and the deep gravelly drift meet in some 

 places as if on a dividing line, while in 

 others they run into each other by almost 

 imperceptible gradations. These soils, under 

 propitious circumstances, are so favorable to 

 grape culture, that the fortunate possessor of 

 any one of them, if we may judge from 

 what is said, thinks his own the best. Under 

 adverse circumstances, however, like those of 

 last winter, which are always liable to occur, 



