468 



CAUSES OF DEPRECIATION IN GRAPES. 



propriate cultivation for each kind ; how this place de- 

 lights and produces the vine and that the olive ; other- 

 wise the fruits degenerate and the vine produces base 

 clusters, fit only for plunder for the birds. The same 

 vintage does not hang from the trees on all soils ; there 

 are vines adapted to more fertile lands and others more 

 congenial to lighter soils ; this for wine and that for 

 luscious fruit ; nor can all lands produce all kinds of 

 fruits. The vine loves the open hills, gladdened by the 

 sun ; the place controls the dispositions of the fields, 

 and to what their nature may be best suited for producing 

 fruits. This produces the sweet clusters, and that the wine 

 which is poured from goblets of gold ; this farms corn 

 and the other wine. If the soil is defective the evident 

 taste will give the proof, and bitterness will torture the 

 sad faces of tasters. Never let your vineyards incline 

 to the setting sun. Sprinkle the plants with rich manure, 

 bury around them spongy stone or rough shells and 

 press them from above with the weight of stones or 

 great potsherds ; thus the plants become strong, protect- 

 ed by the showers, the waters gliding into these, and 

 they are guarded against the heat when the dog-star 

 rages and cleaves the gaping fields with thirst. Never is 

 there enough of painstaking, for the soil is to be cut up 

 thrice and four times yearly ; for the soil opened sup- 

 plies moisture for the vines and the heavy fruits which 

 follow the plowshare." 



And it is not to be doubted that the bitterness or 

 sourness which tortured the sad face of the popular hor- 

 ticulturist above referred to when he tasted the ill 

 grown grapes, was due to neglect of the principles of 

 culture for the vines laid down by this ancient poet and 

 then practiced in the Italian vineyards. The grape is 

 the first of fruits, its qualities are the very highest ; it 

 is not only delicious to the palate but exceedingly nutri- 

 tious ; it lasts longer than any other, rivalling the apple 

 in its keeping properties. And no other plant is more 

 generous in its produce. But certainly no other is 

 cultivated with less judgment or intelligence, or 

 knowledge of its requirements. Its fruit is the offspring 

 of the sun. The genial heat distils its juice from the 

 sap, enriched in the leaves by the bright sunlight and 

 drawn from a congenial soil, which must be bathed in 

 the sun's rays. Shade and coolness retard those chemi- 

 cal changes which produce the sugar from the acid, a 

 process which no artifice of the chemist has yet been 

 able to imitate, while the solar heat and light hasten and 

 perfect them. In the most noted vineyards, every care 

 is exercised to expose the roots to the bright sunshine, 

 and only a few acres, out of hundreds, in the famed 

 French vineyards of Chateaux Latour and Lafitte are 

 able to produce those fine qualities called preniiere crus, 

 or the finest growths. No analysis of the soil has 

 been able to detect any cause for this difference ; it 

 is simply the greater heat of the sun absorbed by the 

 white quartz gravel in which the soil abounds, and the 

 moisture gathered by the stones from the dews which 

 condense abundantly during the nights after the hottest 

 days, while the soil about the roots retains the heat. 



The American grape grower has much to learn from 

 the more experienced European vineyardist. In Eu- 

 rope the locations have been chosen during several cen- 

 turies past. All the noted vineyards were first planted 

 by the old monks, and the same hill-sides, terraced and 

 banked with stones facing the noonday sun, and the same 

 gentler slopes of the hills, are still clad with vines. The 

 fruit takes so little from the soil that only moderate 

 fertilizing is required ; in this respect tillage is manure. 



To gain all possible advantage from the sun's heat, re- 

 flected from the ground, the vines are trained low, and 

 a method of training on low, horizontal frames, upon 

 which clusters hang not more than two feet from the 

 surface, is commonly practiced. No clusters are per- 

 mitted to grow so high that they cannot enjoy this nee. 

 essary heat, and the methods of pruning and training 

 are followed closely after the manner existing for many 

 centuries. In the Italian vineyards the methods now 

 foHowed are the same as those described by Virgil, 

 Columella, and other Roman writers, and the present 

 vine growers enjoy the experience which has been gath- 

 ered up for so many years. 



Here we have no experience ; we are beginners in the 

 art, mostly working in the dark, groping for knowledge 

 which comes through innumerable failures, and in most 

 cases groping in an inextricable maze of which we have 

 no plan. Few understand the principles upon which the 

 culture must be based, and without a study of these and 

 patient adherence to them, our common erratic habit 

 leads us to be always trying new ways which are necessa- 

 rily failures, because opposed to the natural peculiari- 

 ties of the vine, upon which its successful culture must 

 depend. 



Moreover, viticulture here is subject to many serious 

 obstacles in the parasitic diseases which attack the vine. 

 These have rapidly increased in number and severity of 

 late, and no doubt this is due to the extension of the 

 culture under unfavorable conditions. Unsuitable loca- 

 tions, selected without reference to climate, soil, and 

 the nature of the ground, imperfect preparation of the 

 soil, and inefficient culture, must necessarily tend to 

 make weak plants which soon become a prey to the 

 ever waiting fungus germs whose office in nature is to 

 destroy the weaklings ; or to insect parasites which in- 

 crease rapidly as their supplyof food becomes moreabun- 

 dant. And all these unwholesome conditions must affect 

 the fruit, for a sickly vine cannot produce good fruit, and 

 thus comes the "bitterness which tortures the sad faces 

 of the tasters " who cannot become eaters, because the 

 ill taste at once condemns the fruit. And thus, too, come 

 the failures of our best varieties which are spoiled in 

 the growing for want of good culture, and the disap- 

 pointment which ensues when new kinds, at first pro- 

 mising excellences wh>ch should easily make them pop- 

 ular, and which really exist under the skillful culture of 

 the originators, are widely distributed and grown under 

 the most unfavorable conditions, by persons who are 

 wholly inexperienced in the art. 



North Carolitia. Henry Stewart. 



