148 MY GROWING GARDEN 



from my appetite, being one of those Ben Davisy 

 kind of fruit swindles that has only some fine 

 red and yellow stripes on a thick and glossy skin 

 to commend it, the inside averaging somewhat less 

 toothsome than a turnip. These Bismarck trees 

 are going to be ''top-worked" to varieties fit to 

 eat, for I am not growing a garden on any false- 

 alarm basis, and fruits that are only good-looking 

 must move out. 



The grapes — oh, that's another story! Breeze 

 Hill has been growing grapes, the records seem to 

 show, since 1819, and most certainly since 1836. 

 As a boy I knew the product of the "Bellevue 

 Grapery," covering the hillsides south of the house 

 in which I now write, and know it to be superior. 

 Such Concords and Dela wares as the proud master 

 of this vineyard used to market I have never seen 

 elsewhere. When I came here six years ago the old 

 vines, planted in 1858, were yet on the land, but in 

 great disorder. No trimming for years; trellises 

 broken down; the rows unfertilized and unculti- 

 vated, and the poor old vines exposed to vandals 

 of the type of some who came after we had settled 

 here, and who resented being stopped from break- 

 ing off great branches of the old lilacs, saying, 

 "Why, we always come here for laylocks !" 



I was told that the vines were hopelessly 



