PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 229 



advanced, and he must wait another year, or till the vines can recover. A 

 great many nurserymen have had, I doubt not, the same experience. The 

 vines they have sent out have proved very unsatisfactory; and it seems 

 that this is to be said of the Delaware, that so long as this constant smoth- 

 ering, as well as raising roots from eyes of this same wood, goes on, no- 

 thing good can come of the vines so propagated. The simple requirement 

 is this the stock from which new roots are to grow must be from, fully ri- 

 pened toood. 



In the yard of Mr. Green Miller, in the suburbs of Bloomington, I was 

 shown three vines of the Hartford Prolific, a grape not first quality by any 

 means, but it is earliest of all, or, none are earlier. The account of these 

 vines ought to set people thinking. They were obtained from Mr. Phoenix 

 four years ago last spring. They were planted to cover an arbor ten feet 

 wide and thirty feet long. Two or three other vines were planted with 

 them. Mr. Miller told me he dug holes about two feet square, put in 

 bones, old shoes and such stuff, and covered without much care. In the 

 fall he puts two bushel of stable manure as mulching around the roots of 

 each vine; in the spring he takes it off and spreads it on his garden. Last 

 year, and previously, he pruned them, according to his limited knowledge, 

 but a German vine-dresser said he would have no grapes because he pruned 

 wrong. This, the fourth year, they bore a fall crop. I visited 

 Mr. Miller in his store and got his account. He seemed a very can- 

 did man, and I can imagine no reason why his statement is not trust- 

 worthy. Besides, I had a similar one of these grapes from the neigh- 

 bors. He said that they had all they wanted to eat and to make into pre- 

 serves ; that they gave some away, and that his wife sold some ; in short, 

 that from these three vines there must have been five or six bushels. On 

 my expressing surprise, he said he counted the bunches on one vine, just 

 for curiosity, and there were four hundred and twenty, and, it would seem 

 that if they had been sold at the market price they would have brought 

 more than fifty dollars. 



From this we might conclude that one good vine, if it have room, and 

 is moderately cared for, is worth twenty or more vines planted thickly, and 

 dwarfed to death. The Catawba is a native of North Carolina, so said, 

 and yet is found growing wild in Tennessee, and even up the White and 

 Arkansas rivers, in Arkansas, where it bears abundantly, coveriug forest 

 trees with fruit. In its native State no one hears of its rotting. Is it not 

 about time to consider the old Roman method of pruning, handed down to 

 our day, as having some defects ? Let every one judge. 



Mr. L. Dunlap, at Champaign, fifty miles east of Bloomington, is also 

 preparing to plant grapes largely. Last summer I saw his vines ; they 

 were treated in true nursery fashion, the laterals making roots, and the 

 rest of the vines lying about in a way that would distract a vine-dresser. 

 And yet, notwithstanding this treatment, almost every variety of sufficient 

 age was loaded with fruit, and no rot apparent. Perhaps Mr. Dunlap's 

 vines and trees have a partiality for him, for I saw very small apple trees 

 bearing so much as to seem all apples. In planting 1,000 vines he pro- 

 poses the following division : 100 Diana, 200 Delaware, 100 Catawba, 100 

 Isabella, 50 Concord, 200 Norton's Virginia, 100 nerbemout, and 50 new 



