The Diana Grape. 31 



very bushy, never having been pruned at all, {except by cat- 

 tle). After the leaves had fallen, we found (near the root,) 

 one bunch of grapes, which were very small, but good. 

 The following year it produced some ten or twelve bunches, 

 which would compare favorably with the succeeding crops, 

 excepting the bunches were much more loose than those of 

 the succeeding years after the vine was pruned. The three 

 following years it continued to increase in productiveness, 

 though the fruit was small in quantity, compared with the 

 great growth of wood. (As you have some of the vines, I 

 suppose you have noticed its great luxuriance, and richness 

 of the foliage.) 



In the fall of 1842, the vine was a perfect forest of wood, 

 and at that time, or the following spring, it was pruned for 

 the first time. In 1843, (you will remember,) my mother 

 exhibited the fruit at the Horticultural room in Boston ; that 

 year the fruit was very abundant. Since then the original 

 vine has produced and ripened fruit every year till the last. 

 Owing to the severity of the last winter, (or some other 

 cause,) the body of the vine cracked open, and died down 

 to the root. Late in the season it threw out shoots from the 

 root, two of which grew to the length of fifteen and eighteen 

 feet. 



I do not know that it is necessary for me to say any thing 

 about the time of ripening of the fruit ; we have usually 

 found ours very good by the 1st of September, though not 

 fully ripe till the 10th or 20th of the month. At the exhibi- 

 tion at Dedham, Mr. French, of Braintree, remarked to me, 

 that the Diana Grape had improved in flavor. I do not 

 think those exhibited by my mother, there, were any better, 

 if quite as good, as some I have eaten from the old vine. 

 Whether they would be as good from a young vine, as from 

 one which had fruited a few years, I do not know. 



It may seem strange that Mrs. Crehore did not sooner ex- 

 hibit some of the fruit of the " Diana Grape," but the fact 

 was, she did not know that it was a new variety, though she 

 knew she raised it from the seed ; and when she took some 

 of the fruit to the Horticultural room, it was for the purpose 



