32 STATE POMOLOQICAL SOCIETY. 



with me, but which is so unanimously well spoken of by those who 

 have fruited it, as a very early, hardy grape of excellent quality, 

 that I have no doubt it will prove to be so. 



Other early varieties of varying quality in order of merit are. 

 Early Dawn, Cottage, Janesville, Florence, Hartford Prolific, Blood's 

 Black, Champion, (poor), etc. Others that ripen a trifle later, but 

 earlier than the Concord, are. El Dorado, Purity, Brighton, Massa- 

 soit, Yergennes, August Giant, Worden, Wyoming Red, Dracut 

 Amber, etc., to which might be added as many more all earlier than 

 the Concord. But these will suffice. Those who are greatly inter- 

 ested in the matter will learn from the various catalogues the names 

 and characteristics of the different varieties. For those who onl}- 

 want a few varieties, the above is a sufficient guide to kinds of a 

 satisfactory quality. One's taste should be educated to crave better 

 grapes than the Clinton, Hartford, Champion, etc. It is as easy to 

 cultivate the vine of a good variety as that of a poor one, and the 

 satisfaction is much greater. To be sure, our grapes do not have 

 that sweetness and fine flavor that grapes have that grow in a 

 warmer climate, but we need not for that reason remain entirely 

 without. 



At the magnificent fair of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, 

 held at Philadelphia last September, I was shown and invited to 

 taste the famed "Niagara" grape — the grape that is held and con- 

 trolled by a company who refuse to dispose of a single vine except 

 upon stringent conditions and for vineyard planting ; the company 

 to share in the production for a term of years. These grapes were 

 grown, so the gentleman in charge informed me, upon the Jeflerson 

 estate at Monticello, in Virginia, and had been sent by a round- 

 about way to the fair, yet they were in perfect condition — the boxes 

 even full, and in quality perfectly delicious beyond what I had ever 

 imagined a grape could be. The skins, which seemed at first to re- 

 sist, would break with a sudden sharpness and then was let loose 

 what seemed to be nectar — a mixture of stored sunshine and honey- 

 dew. The bare remembrance of that taste is a pleasure. 



But I have an idea that those grapes were more perfect in flavor 

 and sweetness raised in the warm and balmy air of the "Old 

 Dominion" than they would have been grown in New York or Mass- 

 achusetts ; as much better, perhaps, as their grapes are better and 

 sweeter than ours. 



