58 



Garden and Forest. 



[January 30, 1889. 



The Western New York Horticultural 



Society. 



Annual Meeting at Rochester. 



THIS Society is one of the strongest in the country, 

 and its dehberations liave always been of the 

 highest order. The meeting last week was equal in every 

 respect to the best that have preceded it, and it might 

 well serve as a model for similar gatherings. It was well 

 attended by intelligent and interested members and visit- 

 ors. The papers were carefully prepared by experts in 

 the subjects treated. The discussions were always pithy 

 and practical. Business was dispatched with rare order 

 and promptness. Each session began at the precise mo- 

 ment named on the schedule, and the interest never 

 flagged for an instant until the close. Our report of the 

 meeting is necessarily limited to a condensed summary of 

 some of the addresses and discussions, but the proceed- 

 ings were instructive from beginning to end. The vener- 

 able Patrick Barry, who for twenty years has served most 

 efficiently as President of the Society, was unable to pre- 

 side; but he sent a donation of $2,000 as the nucleus of a 

 fund whose income is to be used for the Society, under 

 direction of the Executive Committee. Mr. W. C. Barry 

 presided and read the Presidents Address, which was a 

 record of horticultural progress during the year, and in 

 spite of the depressed prices of staple fruits, it was hope- 

 ful in tone, as the following extract will show : 



We hear a good deal about low prices, overproduction of 

 fruits, and all that. This is nothing new ; the same cry was 

 not uncommon twenty or thirty years ago. In my opinion, 

 prospects were never better. The consumption of fruits is in- 

 creasing wonderfully all over the world, but it is natural that 

 as we advance more regard should be paid to the quality of 

 fruits and the manner in which they are placed in the market. 

 The slovenly fruit-grower must go ! 



THE CHAUTAUQUA VINEYARDS. 



This was the subject of a paper by Mr. A. S. Watson, who 

 described the Chautauqua Vineyard district as extending for 

 about forty miles along the south-easterly shore of Lake Erie, 

 and towards the south reaching half way up the range of hills 

 whose summits are from three and a half to five miles from the 

 lake-shore, to which they run parallel. The surface of the dis- 

 trict is gently rolling or level and never precipitous, and no 

 section of the country of equal width can show greater diver- 

 sity of soil. The strip along the lake is a sandy loam, easy to 

 cultivate, quickly responding to fertilizers, and generally un- 

 derlaid with clay. It varies from half a mile to a mile in 

 width. It is considered inferior for farming purposes, is 

 cheaper than the adjacent land, and its merits for grape-grow- 

 ing have been but recently recognized. Its advantages are 

 ease of cultivation and capacity to withstand drought, while 

 grape posts are more durable here than in the gravelly loam. 

 Grapes produced here have a finer bloom, more compact clus- 

 ters and better keeping qualities, but are later in maturing than 

 on the next belt. The vines, too, are less susceptible to win- 

 ter injury. South of this is a strip of gravelly loam, a stronger 

 soil, more valuable for farm crops. It is a warm soil, and 

 the rapid growth of weeds makes it more difficult of cultiva- 

 tion. It yields enormous crops of fruit and is more susceptible 

 to the effects of drought. It matures crops earlier, and, there- 

 fore, is preferable for early varieties. Still south of this on 

 the hill-slopes is a narrower strip, with a soil principally of 

 clay, and the few vineyards planted here produce a good 

 yield of excellent quality. The Catawba, Delaware and Isa- 

 bella do better on this land than they do nearer the lake. The 

 soil is not easily tilled, but the grapes have a beautiful bloom, 

 ripen early, and have the best keeping qualities. Nine-tenths 

 of the land in these three belts is well adapted to vineyard 

 planting, but not one acre in forty is yet planted, and scarcely 

 two-thirds of the vines planted have come into bearing. That 

 is, thirty-nine-fortieths of the land is now devoted to farm 

 crops, and the visitor riding along one of the perfect roads 

 that traverse the district would naturally inquire, " Where 

 are the Chautauqua vineyards ? " And yet 700 car-loads of 

 grapes were shipped from this region last season, which paid 

 $100,000 in freights to the railroads. Two and a half million 

 ten-pound baskets were required to market the crop, and they 

 cost $75,000. For the young vineyards fifty car-loads of wire 



will be needed next spring, $5,000 worth of manilla rope will 

 be needed for tying the vines, and about ten million vines 

 will be propagated. The Concord leads all other varieties, 

 largely in the number propagated, and following this in the 

 order of recognized merit come Worden, Moore's Early, 

 Pocklington, Niagara, Delaware, Brighton, Agawam, Lindley, 

 Salem and Catawba. A new variety, the Moyer, is attracting 

 much attention. It is hardy and healthy, resembling the Del- 

 aware in foliage, size and equality of fruit, and is earlier than 

 Moore's Early. A large percentage of the labor in the Chau- 

 tauqua vineyards is done by women and girls. Tying up the 

 vines in spring, and harvesdng the crop in the fine autumn 

 weather, is invigorating rather than exhausting work, and of 

 the thousands of women and girls who begin to gather the 

 crop in September and continue the work for six weeks or 

 two months, few leave without gaining in strength, and from 

 fifteen to thirty pounds in weight. Several vineyards are 

 successfully managed by women. It would seem that for 

 women left with families and a capital of from $2,500 to 

 $5,000, and dependent upon the income secured from this 

 investment and upon their own resources for a livelihood, 

 no more promising occupation can be suggested. A vine- 

 yard of five or six acres, in full bearing, with a comfortable 

 cottage and packing house, can be secured for $2,500. 



FERTILIZERS. 



Professor Caldwell, of Cornell University, began by stating 

 that if dilute manure-water or water in which the three most 

 important elements of plant-food — potash, phosphoric acid and 

 some compound of nitrogen — had been dissolved, were passed 

 through a stratum of pure, clean sand, it would come out as 

 rich in all these ingredients as when it was poured upon the 

 surface ; but that if the same water was filtered through ordi- 

 nary tillable loam, it would be found almost colorless and 

 odorless, and analysis would show that the nitrogen, phos- 

 phoric acid and potash had been taken up and were held by the 

 soil. Now, if clear water should be again poured through this 

 soil scarcely any of the sulphate of ammonia, the phosphate 

 or the potash would be removed. It would require 100 gal- 

 lons of pure water to wash out of the soil what was left there 

 by passing through it a single gallon containing this fertilizing 

 material in solution. This property by which plant-food is 

 fixed in the soil is of great advantage, and enables the farmer 

 or gardener to manure when he will, with the assurance that 

 the land wiU hold the plant-food fill it is needed by the plant. 

 For, although it cannot be washed out by water, the plant car- 

 ries its own solvent, or the key to unlock what has been fixed 

 in the soil for its use. A solution of plant-food can easily be 

 too rich for the plant's use, but we need not fear, under ordi- 

 nary conditions, any excess of fertilizer, for, when locked in 

 the soil, it is only delivered to the plant in such quantities as 

 are required. One form of nitrogen, however, and the form 

 which it generally passes into when taken by the plant — 

 namely, the nitrates — is not fixed in the soil, but can be dis- 

 solved out by rain so as to pass off in the drainage-water. The 

 natural caution, therefore, in case the nitrates are used, is to 

 apply them when the plants need them. That is, do not top- 

 dress with nitrates in autumn for spring crops, and use small 

 and frequent applications rather than apply the enfire amount 

 needed at once. While in a general way the farmer can put all 

 the manure he has to spare on his land or in it, and then for- 

 get it till the crop comes to take it as necessity requires, with 

 nitrogen he must be watchful, and always have a plant ready 

 to catch it when nitrification takes place. 



Professor Caldwell was followed by Joseph Harris, who made 

 a most suggestive address, in which he urged upon fruit 

 growers and gardeners the advantages of using riiore nitrogen 

 and using nitrates as the cheapest and most available forms of 

 this element. Gardeners, he said, should use more commer- 

 cial fertilizers, instead of bidding against each other for stable 

 manure, which is a by-product, with a price controlled entirely 

 by the demand. The profit of using nitrogen, for example, 

 depends upon the value of the crop. Consumers refused to 

 take the chemists' valuafion of food stuffs, but consulted their 

 tastes. For the support of life the carbohydrates in corn 

 might be worth as much as the same nutrients in peaches. 

 But while these elements in corn were worth $30 a ton, 

 they were worth $500 a ton in peaches. It might not pay to 

 use nitrate of soda on meadows when the carbohydrates 

 in hay were worth $30 a ton, and yet it might be profita- 

 ble to use nitrate on strawberries where these nutrients were 

 worth $750 a ton. It had been stated that nitrates would not 

 pay in the peach orchard, and they would not pay when other 

 crops were grown among the trees. Indeed, it was conceiva- 

 ble that nitrates might injure the peach crop where they were 



