CROPS AND PROFITS. 181 



The Catawba has its advocates, and it is really a 

 dainty fruit if it have good range of sun, and is not 

 hurried in its ripening ; but in delicacy of flavor it 

 must yield to the Diana. The Catawba crop is also 

 exceedingly uncertain in this latitude, by reason of 

 the shortness of the season. A gaunt old vine of 

 this variety, which stands behind the farmhouse, has 

 given me only two crops in the six years past ; the 

 frosts have garnered the promise of the others. I 

 have now, however, contrived to conduct its trailing 

 mantle upon a rude trellis, so as to completely 

 embower the roof of the little outlying kitchen ; and 

 the fumes and warmth of this latter, from its open 

 skylights, have given to the old vine such a wonder- 

 ful vigor and precocity, that I have promise of a full 

 burden of well-ripened fruit in advance even of the 

 Isabella. Can the reek of a kitchen be put to better 

 service ? 



The Isabella escapes ordinary frosts, and is a pro- 

 digious bearer ; but it has no rare piquancy of flavor; 

 and the same is to be said of its earlier congener, the 

 Hartford-Prolific. 



Of all fruits, the grape is the one which, to insure 

 perfection, will least tolerate neglect. I do not speak 

 of those half-wild and flavorless crops, which hang 

 their clusters up and down old elms, in neglected 

 farm-yards, but of that compact, close array of 



