156 TRANSACTIONS OP THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Grapes — How many can be Produced upon an Acre ? 



Mr. Solon Robinson.- — This question lias been considerably agitated of 

 late. Here is an item of evidence that members of the Club have not over- 

 estimated the possible production. Suel Foster, Muscatine, Iowa, in a let- 

 ter to The Country Oentleman says, in speaking of an exhibition of grape* 

 at the Iowa State Fair, that Mr. Jobe, of Clay, Washington ct)unty, Iowa, 

 raised this year on half an acre, containing eight hundred vines five years 

 old, 8,665 pounds. He had the proof of this crop with him, and expected 

 to get a special premium from our " Discretionary Committee" for this most 

 extraordinary crop of Concord grapes. He had about four acres, set mostly 

 with Concord. His yield of wine, with some select lots, was a gallon to a 

 little over eleven pounds, but the average was about a gallon to fourteen 

 pounds. A portion of his grapes were sent to Chicago, and sold at fifteen 

 cents, netting him at home twelve and a half cents per pound. At the 

 same rate his vines will yield 17,330 pounds per acre. Does any one doubt 

 if they will do that at five years, that they will yield 20,000 pounds at ten 

 years of age ? 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter said that he lately read a statement in the Genesee 

 Farmer that Mrs. Munn's grapes were splendid. She has five hundred and 

 forty-six bearing vines, seven years from planting. They are trained on 

 post and slat trellises, seven feet high. The vines are fourteen feet apart 

 each way. The whole vineyard occupies two acres and five-eighths. In 

 1862 it produced seven tons of grapes; last year eleven tons, and this year 

 the crop is estimated at fifteen tons. . They are all Isabellas. Mr. Adams 

 has charge of the vineyard, and has certainly been very successful. 



Heavy Seeding of Grass Land. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — The following mixture of grass seed for an acre of 

 land is used by Mr. Collins, a- dairyman at Collinsville, Conn.: nine lbs. 

 timothy, nine lbs. orchard grass, three lbs. red clover, three lbs. red top, 

 seven lbs. Italian rye grass, three lbs. perennial rye grass, two lbs. tall 

 meadow oat grass, and four lbs. white clover. In England two bushels of 

 large and twelve lbs. of small seed is given as the seed for an acre, and 

 the cost is stated at "twenty-five to thirty shillings" an acre, 



Iowa as a Wool Producing State. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — It was estimated that between 400,000 and 500,000 

 sheep were driven into Iowa in 1863, and that the influx this year wnll be 

 equal to the last. This, with the increase of lambs, which is very large, 

 as the sheep are remarkably health}', will soon give that State a high rank 

 in the production of wool, particularly as marked attention is given to fine 

 wool sheep. There were fifty Vermont bucks in one lot at the Iowa State 

 Fair. . . 



Profitable Stock. 



Mr. E G. Holcomb, Brashier Iron Works, St. Lawrence county, N. Y., 

 says : " From seventeen stocks of bees I had eight hundred lbs. honey and 

 twelve swarms; one hive made eighty-one lbs., but did not swarm. This 

 crop was mostly obtained from the last of June to the middle of August, at 



