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28 

 LETTER EIGHTH, 



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ON THE GRAP15. 



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The grape is the most delicious and healthful 

 of fruits. Unfortunately, the finest varieties — 

 the European — can only be grown to advantage 

 under glass in this country ; the season being too 

 short to bring the best, such as Blacls Hamburg, 

 Bo wood Muscat, &c., to perfection, and the 

 climate being otherwise unsuitable, inducing mil- 

 dew of the leaves and berries. 



Under glass even in cold vineries — i. e., with- 

 out artificial heat — these varieties come to great 

 perfection, and no doubt could be grown on a 

 large scale for the supply of the market, by those 

 skilled in their culture, so as to give a fair profit 

 on the capital and labor expended. As it is not 

 the object of this letter to treat of the culture of 

 the grape under glass, I will restrict myself to 

 the open-air culture for which the Native Gbapb 

 is admirably suited in many parts of Canada. 



Very few of the native varieties commonly cul- 

 tivated are sufiiciently hardy or ripen their fruit 

 early enough to allow of their culture in the 

 greater part of Canada. Several are early 

 enough to ripen in favorable seasons as far north 

 as Montreal, but none, with the exception of the 

 Clinton (which is inferior), are hardy enough to 

 stand the rigors of a Canadian winter without 

 protection, except in the western portions of the 

 country ; but, as it is easy to cultivate the grape 

 80 as to give it protection during winter, this 

 need present no insuperable barrier to its suc- 

 cessful cultivation, if early enough varieties can 

 be procured. 



Great advances in this direction have been 

 made of late years, and the Delaware, and more 

 lately the Adirondac, and probably some others, 

 will be found, except in very unfavorable seasons, 

 to ripen well through the greater part of Ca- 

 nada ; and, as new and earlier and hardier va- 

 rieties are raised, there is no reason why, even- 

 tually, good grapes should not be grown from one 

 end of Canada to the other. 



Several varieties of the wild grape grow spon- 

 taneously, and ripen their fruit from far below 

 Quebec to the western extremity of the Province ; 

 those in Lower Canada ripening very early. By 

 judicious crossing of these with some of the 

 earliest and finest of the less hardy native va- 

 rieties, no doubt new varieties could be obtained 

 suitable for culture in the colder parts of the 

 Province. Something has already been done in 



this direction ; Mr. Rogers, of Massachusetts, hav- 

 ing crossed the Charter Oak GTrape with pollen 

 from the Black Hamburg, from which he has 

 raised several fine varieties. His No. 4 is said 

 to be nearly as large and fine as the Black Ham- 

 burg, aud as early and hardy as the Dela- 

 ware. Probably a cross between it and the ear- 

 liest of the Lower Canada varieties might prc- 

 duce one perfectly hardy, requiring no protection 

 in winter in the severest latitudes. 



The Concord, Adirondac, and Delaware would 

 also be useful to experiment with, though the 

 latter is rather weak-growing and small in the 

 berry for crossing with one still smaller. 



At present we have varieties that with more 

 or less winter protection will succeed well in a 

 large portion of Canada West, and even as far 

 north as Montreal and Ottawa; while all along 

 the shores of the Detroit River, Lake Erie, the 

 Niagara River, and a portion of Lake Ontario, 

 where the soil is suitable, vineyard culture will be 

 found as profitable as any wb re on this Con- 

 tinent, with the exception of what are now called 

 the Grape Islands, at the upper end of Lake 

 Erie, while the largest of these, Pele Island, 

 nearly equal in size to all the rest, belongs to 

 Canada, and is as suitable for the vine as the 

 best of the others. 



The soil most suitable for the grape is a well- 

 drained, strong, clayey loam ; and the nest best 

 is a strong, gravelly soil. In a low, black loam 

 or in a sandy soil they will not do so well. In 

 the clayey soil the fruit colors better, ripens ear- 

 lier, and is more full of the saccharine principle, 

 and is less liable to mildew than in the other 

 soils. 



The exposure may be various at the west, but 

 towards the east and north it should be on a 

 south or south-westerly slope, fully exposed to 

 the sun for as much of the day as possible, but 

 protected by trees or screens from the cold 

 northerly winds. This has been found of great 

 benefit on the Grape Islands, where a belt of 

 trees is usually left along the shore on the ex- 

 posed sides of the islands. The winter on these 

 islands is as severe as on the main shore oppo- 

 site, and even considerably farther north, the 

 lake being an aally frozen over. What makes 

 them more suitable for the vine than elsewhere 

 is, that, being surrounded by water on all sides. 



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