FEKTILIZEES AND FRTJIT. 5 



That ought to settle the question of quality. In fact, fertilizers are 

 absolutely necessary to us in order to grow grapes of the highest 

 quality." 



Tlie Feeding of the Grape. 



"This vineyard that you speak of has had no stable manure at all ? " 



"Not a pound. As I said, it is a place where it is not convenient to 

 haul manure. On most of our grapes we use manure when the vines 

 are young to induce a heavy growth of wood, but even this may be 

 overdone and too much wood growth made. I am satisfied with the 

 growth made on those vines where nothing but fertilizer was used. In 

 fact, these vines are sounder and freer from disease than any others. 

 We may not get such a luxuriant growth when less nitrogen is used, 

 but the wood thus made is sounder and harder." 



"What combination of fertilizers has given you the best results on 

 fruits ? " 



"I have not tried any home mixing, but have used mixed goods— 

 the Mapes Fruit and Vine seems to have about the right composition 

 for our use. This contains about 3 per cent, of ammonia, 10 of phos- 

 phoric acid and 11 of potash. If we were to mix at home we should try 

 to get about that proportion." 



"How heavily do you fertilize ? " 



" On grapes, we use about 600 pounds every other year. On Dela- 

 ware grapes we use about 800 pounds." 



" Why more on this variety ? " 



" One reason is that there are more vines of this variety to the acre. 

 It is a smaller vine and is set closer. Again it is a heavy feeder and 

 will stand more fertilizer than others. To show how many more Dela- 

 wares there are on an acre than of some other varieties, I can tell you 

 how close we. plant them. Catawbas and Moore's Early 9x8 feet. Con- 

 cords and Niagaras 9x9 feet and Delawares 6x8." 



"What other differences in feeding habit of grapes have you 

 noticed ? " 



" As I said, Delawares will stand most crowding, with Moore's 

 Early close to them in this respect. We have found that Niagaras 

 cannot stand foo much prosperity, but can be overfed so that fertilizer 

 may be wasted on them. Differences of varieties in this respect are 

 considerable -and are well worth studying — almost as much so as with 

 different kinds of animals." 



"What about varieties ? " 



" We have 47 varieties in aU— some tested in a small way only. For 

 our chief crop we confine ourselves to some half-dozen varieties. 

 There is most money for us in Delawares. That variety and Catawba 

 grow to perfection on our soil, while in many localities they will not 



