254 



tSe t*0M()ti6'GiST AND GABDENER. 



1871 



of them can be raised for the market by the thrift 

 and versatile talent of our own citizens. It is true 

 the glass grapery cannot be neglected, nor can the 

 laws of growth and ripening be disregarded with 

 impunity. Still, it is by a very simple fixed rou- 

 tine, easily understood, that these delicacies are 

 ripened so as to melt in multiform flavor on the 

 palate. 



Nothing cultivated needs less care, is more eas- 

 ily understood, or more certain to be a successful 

 crop, throughout the whole domain of the United 

 States, adding to the millions of our products. 



He who studies the matter for himself will find 

 no complicated rules or wonderful secrets to be 

 learned, but everything so plain that a child may 

 learn what is requisite, and the labor so small, when 

 the system is acquired and the few necessary 

 mechanical implements rightly made, that the inva- 

 lid or the youth can do the work. 



A single reflection on the main causes of the cold- 

 ness of our climate will show the need of glass for 

 the culture of these varieties of grapes. We have a 

 continent more narrow than others at the South, 

 growing more wide, but which does not expand to 

 its vaster width until the regions of perpetual ice 

 are reached towards the pole, where unfortunately 

 it attains its greatest breadth, and sterile, cruelly 

 cold, as it is, clings, perhaps without the " open sea " 

 so fondly dreamed of, to the pole itself. It is to this 

 vast icy region, the utility of which is not very 

 apparent, we must attribute the cold so contrary to 

 our feelings. Another cause, if the theory of pre- 

 vailing upper currents is true, is that we are again 

 unfortunate in being on the Eastern, instead of 

 Western shores of the continent; for the corres- 

 ponding cold region of Asia, with its tuberculous 

 consumption, is there due to the loss of oceanic 

 heat, that makes Oregon and California, as well as 

 Eastern Europe, with a more healthful climate for 

 the lungs, ripen fruits better than the Eastern 

 States. But be this as it may, it is to the unusual 

 formation of the continent, and to the ice of the 

 Northern portions of it, that, despite a genial sun- 

 shine, with remarkable purity of atmosphere, are 

 due the cold and frosts that mar our products, and 

 which by a sweep of a vast "Norther," or cold-bear- 

 ing north wind, at times cuts off a whole cotton 

 crop when slightly above ground, compelling, as the 

 writer has himself seen, every planter, even to the 

 shores of the Gulf, genial as the climate there is, to 

 replant his cotton as late as April or May, thus 

 doing over again, often when seed is scarce, the 

 whole spring's work. 



The same cause, later in the spring, cuts ofi" the 

 peach, apple, and the promising corn of the North- 

 ern States, and even in June desolates the Canadas. It 

 is this, with the consequent cold night air and skies 

 that sends mildew and rot into our foreign grapes. 



So that from the Northern Lakes, almost or quite 

 to the far Southern cotton lands, he who would taste 

 the fruits of Egyptian, European, and other East- 

 ern vines, so exquisite, must rear them under the 

 protection of glass. And the main elements of the 

 details of their growth arising out of this same fact 

 can be stated in a word to be tlie further North the. 

 more completdy must the vine he under control. The 

 " border," that word so unmeaning to the ordinary 

 American reader, or the soil in which the vine 

 grows and has its roots, at the extreme North must be 

 wholly within the house, to enable the culturist to 

 give or withold water, heat and air at pleasure. 

 The middle States may make the border partially 

 in and partly out of the house, and at the far South 

 it may be wholly outside of the glass, unless the 

 control of moisture be an object. The same rule 

 applies to ventilation. The North must ventilate 

 cautiously at the roots: the South may copy the 

 open foreign ventilation, or have the house wholly 

 open at the roots. 



On these facts, more than others, should the vari- 

 ations of the structure of vineries be made. 



The main essentials of grapery cultivation are : a 

 suitable border, that is, suitable soil and shape or spot 

 for the soil to be in for the growth of the vine ; a 

 suitable house of glass ; suitable ventilation, or means 

 of supplying air ; an ample supply of water, as near 

 the temperature of the soil as possible ; and a choice 

 stock of vines. These obtained, there is no one in 

 the family of a farmer or planter, the laboring man 

 mechanic, or professional man, as well as the man 

 of leisure and fortune, who cannot do the rest. 



The daily routine resolves itself into the opening 

 the house for ventilation, the closing the house or 

 stopping the ventilation at suitable hours, soon 

 learned ; the watering to suit the state of the vines 

 and fiuit; checking overgrowth, or promoting 

 growth or renewal of the wood ; and guarding 

 against or destroying insects and disease. 



This is assumed as the routine, not because more 

 cannot be done, for there are complicated modes of 

 forcing the vine, and fanciful rules, laborious 

 enough; but of these neither time nor utility de- 

 mands particular mention. The fact that under so 

 many details, so many varied plans, the vine bears 

 nearly alike, most emphatically declares the vine 

 endures but does not 7ieed these arduous trainings, 

 endures rather than is benefitted by them. Thus 

 there are graperies scarcely watered the whole sea- 

 son ; others watered night and day, from eight to 

 ten times in the twenty-four hours ; one only by 

 broad sunlight, another at sunrise and sunset ; one 

 with the vines cut, girdled and mangled, another 

 left to the greatest freedom ; one with a never vary- 

 ing thermometer, another with the most abrupt 

 changes of temperature. Now it is not said that 

 these diversities produce no perceptible results, for 



