164 



THE POMOLOGIST. 



December 



int^nv^, 



For the Western Pomologist. 



Rogers No. 47. 



This )s not one of the forty-five numbers 

 of his wciU known crosses. Mr, Rogers, of 

 Salem, originally made hybrid seeds to the 

 number of 150 or 175, on the -vvild, inedible 

 Mammoth. Of these, 45 gi'ew, and about 

 half of them have been pretty well tested 

 by myself and others. The rest have not 

 been well tried out of New England, Mr. 

 Rogers, later than this, proceeded to recross 

 some of the best of his first crosses. These 

 he numbered from 45 to 57. It is the 47 thus 

 produced, that I now write about. It will at 

 once be seen that the Mammoth, in the 47, 

 has bad two doses of the foreign pollen. 

 The result is a beautiful, large, black grape, 

 in a large, but not overgrown bunch. It is 

 very similar to Adirondac in flavor, that is, 

 a soft, mild flavor, with a mild aroma. In its 

 pulp, it is almost identical with the foreign 

 Sweetwater, which is a yellowish, white 

 grape, and it further resembles the Chaselas 

 or Sweetwater in the manner of its growth, 

 that is, it has a clnb-like cane, short and al- 

 most stunted side canes, and an old, scraggly 

 look to the vine. 



Now, the great value of No. 47, lies in the 

 Delaware-like character of this juicy grape ; 

 and all admirers of Delaware, Adirondac, 

 Allen's Hybrid, and Eumelan, will at once 

 recognize it as of this class of mild flavored, 

 pulpless grapes, having the great gain of 

 being a larger grape. It bears profusely. 

 Indeed, it tends to overload itself. 



Such are the facts as developed by the test 

 vine, which Mr. Tucker had of me and is 

 with me proving. How it will be elsewhere, 

 what are its ultimate faults and excellencies, 

 cannot yet be said. It is earlier than the 

 Concord, and a great favorite of mine. It 

 will not ripen fully, perhaps, in late sites, 

 as most of New England, but in all 

 grape regions, like Central New York, it 

 promises to be a success. It is, at any rate, 

 one of the best new grapes I have lately 



seen. 



S. J. Parker, M. D. 

 Ithaca, N. T. 



*-•♦ 



The Result of the Grape Crop of 1870 at 

 Bluffton, Mo. 



The vintage is at last over, and we have 

 found leisure time enough to sum up results 

 and draw conclusions, which we will try to 

 give to our readers in a condensed form. 



We had 37^^ acres in bearing this season, 

 of which 17 may be called established and 

 bearing a fidl crop, IOJ2 acres bearing their 

 first, and thus only a partial crop. Of these, 

 about 13 acres are located in the river bot- 

 tom, 15J^ on the bluffs. The latter were 

 twice struck by hail, and the Concords also 

 severely touched by frost in April, by which 



the crop was diminished at least one-third, 

 while the bottom vineyards escaped both 

 hail and frost. The varieties were divided 

 about as follows : 



Norlons, 11 acres, 9 in full ticaring.S bear- 

 ing first crop, 70,000 pounds. 



Concord, 9 acres, 5 iu full bearing, 4 bear- 

 ing first crop, 50,146 pounds. 



Goethe, 3 acres, bearing first crop, 5,.306 

 pounds. 



Creveliug, 8 acres, bearing first crop, 430 

 pounds. 



Delaware, 1 acre, % '" f"l' bearing, )4 

 bearing first crop, 477 pounds. 



Clinton, ]4. ^ci'e, in f«ll bearing, l,33i 

 pounds. 



Ives, 14 acre, in full bearing, 3,516 pounds. 



Taylor, % acre, in full bearing, 603 

 pounds. 



Herbemont, I4 acre, in full bearing, 489 



acre, in full bearing, 798 

 icre, tn full bearing, 1,615 



splendid fruit. And besides this heavy crop 

 the}' made an enoiinous growth of wood, 

 which is now ripe to the very tips, the foli- 

 age hanging at the present date (Oct. 19) on 

 tlie vines green and fresh. 



But we are afraid to weary our readers. 

 Let us hear from them about their crops. 

 In our next number we will give them a 

 table of the specific weight of must from 

 over thirty varieties, from which we made 

 wine this season. — Orape CuUuriat. 



pounds. 



Telegraph, 

 pounds. 



Hartford, 1 

 pounds. 



Other varieties, 3 acres, 1 in full bearing, 

 1 bearing first crop, 3,050 pounds. 



Total, 37i| acres, 17 in full bearing, tQ% 

 bearing first crop, 137,715 pounds ; or an aver- 

 age of about 5,000 pounds to the acre. 



This does not include the amount consumed 

 on the place, taken to exhibition, etc., which 

 may safely be put down at several thousand 

 pounds more, so that the crop has been over 

 140,000 pounds. Of these, about 135,000 

 pounds were made into wine by tlie company, 

 the balance being used by the tenants for 

 wine, marketed, etc. 



If we take into acconnt the vicissitudes 

 mentioned before, which diminished the 

 crop on :he hills to a considerable extent, 

 the manifold ravages of birds and animals, 

 which are unavoidable in a new settlement, 

 and by which fully one-half of the earlier 

 varieties Were destroyed, and also that a 

 great part of these vineyards bore for the 

 first time, we think we have reason to be 

 proud of, and feel thankful for such a crop 

 In some of the vineyards the yield was reallj' 

 enormous. 0.ie of our tenants, Mr. George 

 Schneider, who holds two leases in the bot- 

 tom, of which about six acres were bearing, 

 gathered over 64,000 pounds, more than 

 10,000 pounds to the acre. From 3 acres of 

 Concord he gathered something like 31,000 

 pounds, from 3 acres of Norton's 33,600 

 pounds, and from }£ acre of Ives 3,516 

 pounds, and part of these were only bearing 

 their first crop. 



Of the newer varieties, the Goethe and 

 Wilder especially have surpassed our most 

 sanguine expectations. The Goethe has 

 even surpassed the Concord in productive- 

 ness and healthy, vigorous growth. From 

 350 vines, planted 6x10, in their third .sum- 

 mer, consequentl}' bearing their first crop, 

 on the hills, we received 3,137 pounds of 



The best Time for Pruning Grapes, 



I have read the various articles in Ti'tjn'a 

 Journal of Horticulture in regard to the 

 pruning uf grape vines. I do not propose 

 to tlmarize upon the subject, but to give 

 the experience of twenty j'ears foy 

 what it is worth. At first I supposed that it 

 was improper to trim in the spring, when 

 they bled the worst, the Germans, whom I 

 employed, having a prejudice against it. 

 But sometimes some parts of the vineyard 

 were trimmed at this supposed improper 

 time. 



The closest observation I was able to make 

 discovered no bad result, and I have never 

 seen that it made any dift'ereuce when the 

 vines were trimmed, from the time the 

 leaves were ripe late in the fall to as late as 

 the 30th of June. I seldom get all my vines 

 trimmed before the first of June. 



Since we have had the rot, I have iu some 

 vineyards tried leaving the three canes the 

 full length until August, when if no rot ap- 

 peared, I cut off the surplus wooil, but if the 

 rot set in, have left the whole vine, and got 

 a larger yield than from vines short pruned. 

 But where there was little or no rot, the 

 shortest pruned vines h.ave uniformly borne 

 the best crops. I am clearly of the opinion 

 that the best time to trim is whenever it is 

 most convenient after the leaf is dead in the 

 fall to the first of June. 



I have always root pruned pretty severely, 

 plowing deeply close up to the vine, and 

 cutting the roots in the first hoeing in the 

 spring in most of my vineyards; but I have 

 also tried the reverse, and must confess I 

 have not been able to S'C much if any diller- 

 euce fin the results. There are now some 

 seven to eight hundred acres here in bearing. 



Some persons think that spring trimming 

 is best, but do not claim that they have any 

 facts to prove it. It is true that some parts 

 of vineyards have been trimmed in the fall, 

 and did not bearas well as the part trimmed 

 in the spring, but the reverse is also some- 

 times true. It is quite common to have one 

 part of a vineyard do better than another 

 one year, and the mse reversed another year. 

 If Mr. Byington or Mr. Underbill will give 

 us facts instead of tlieor}', I think it would 

 aid us more in the deduction of correct con- 



clusions than theorizing. — A. Kcllcy, Kelley's 

 Idand, 0., in TUtons journal of Uort. 



The Adirondack Grape. 



The Boston Joui nal of Chemutry sa3's of 

 the Adirondach : 



" Among the new varieties of grapes, the 

 Adirondack is worthy of praise. We have 

 fruited it three consecutive seasons, and it is 

 the earliest and sweetest of all our varieties. 

 It has also proved to be a good bearer, hardy, 

 and the frnit holds well on to the stem. It 

 is a magnificent grape for wine, aflbrding a 

 variety resembling true Malaga. It is so ex- 

 ceedingly saccharine that it needs to be 

 watched closely and handled intelligently, 

 in manipulating for wine. The Israella, of 

 Grant parteniiiy, is also a good and early 

 grape. It clo.sely resemliles the Adirondack, 

 but is inferior in several respects. The Is- 

 raella is upon the whole a failure. 



