A Hymn of Praise 
FOR THE BLESSINGS OF THE YEAR- 
RAISE to God, immortal praise, 
For the love that crowns our days I 
Bounteous Source of every joy, 
Let Thy praise our tongues employ. 
For the blessings of the field ; 
For the stores the gardens yield •, 
For the vine's exalted juice; 
For the generous olive’s use: 
Flocks that whiten all the plain; 
Yellow sheaves of ripened grain; 
Clouds that drop their fattening dews; 
Suns that temperate warmth diffuse. 
All that Spring, with bounteous hand, 
Scatters o’er the smiling land; 
All that liberal Autumn pours 
From her rich o’erflowing stores. 
These to Thee, our God, we owe. 
Source whence all our blessings flow; 
And for these our souls shall raise 
Grateful thanks and solemn praise. 
Mrs. Barbauld. 
Tlie Improved Grapes. 
OVERS of grapes will be glad to know 
that all of the improvements in fruits 
have not been confined to pears and straw¬ 
berries, but that the luscious and toothsome 
grape has come in for its full share of atten¬ 
tion, and we are glad to be able to place be¬ 
fore our readers the fine illustrations of the 
newer varieties with which this number of 
Seed-Time and Harvest is embellished. 
Grape culture has taken rapid strides for a 
few years, and no basket of fruit is deemed 
complete if it does not contain a few bunch¬ 
es of both the light and dark varieties. 
The Pocklington, represented by the col¬ 
ored plate, is one of the new white grapes, 
and is now being disseminated by Mr. Geo. 
A. Stone, of Rochester, N. Y., who has giv¬ 
en much attention to the hybridization of 
our small fruits, especially the grape, cur¬ 
rant and raspberry. From the high endorse¬ 
ment which the Pocklington has received, 
we have no doubt those who are fortunate 
enough to secure a vine of it will have a 
prize of which they will feel proud in future 
years. 
Among those that have slowly worked 
their way into public lavor is the white 
grape, Prentiss, selected from seedlings of 
the Isabella which were started by Mr. J. W. 
Prentiss of Pultney. N. Y., over fifteen years 
ago, and is a pure native seedling with no- 
taint of foreign blood. The great claim for 
the Prentiss is its hardiness and productive¬ 
ness. Mr. T. S. Hubbard of Fredonia, N. 
Y., who is perhaps the largest grape vine 
grower in America was so well pleased with 
it that he secured the exclusive control of 
it and makes it his first choice. 
“Moore’s Early,” which won the Sixty 
Dollar prize offered by the Massachusetts 
Horticultural Society for the best new seed¬ 
ling grape, and which was awarded in De¬ 
cember, 1877, to John B. Moore of Concord, 
Mass., is one out of a lot of twenty-five hun¬ 
dred seedlings, and produced its first fruit 
in 1872. After nine years it has fully justi¬ 
fied the claims of its originator. Marshall 
P. Wilder, Pres. Am. Pomological Society, 
says that it is the earliest in a collection of 
forty varieties, and equal in vigor, quality 
and productiveness with the Concord. 
Having seen and tasted this grape, we feel 
warranted in saying it fully met our expect¬ 
ations, although from the high praise be¬ 
stowed upon it we were prepared to expect 
much. 
The Country Gentleman, in speaking of 
the comparative quality and value of the 
four new white grapes, Duchess, Pockling¬ 
ton, Prentiss and Niagara, sums the matter 
up as follows: 
“Without having had an opportunity of 
examining them critically side by side, we 
should place the Duchess first in quality, a 
drawback being its one-fourth foreign blood 
and the fear that this intermixture may pos¬ 
sibly injure the foliage in the future. Next 
in flavor would be the Prentiss, a strictly 
native sort, of excellent quality, but not 
equal in this respect to the Duchess. The 
Niagara, although one notch lower in flavor, 
is larger, finer in appearance, a prodigious 
grower and bearer, a)id on the whole has an 
unusual number of excellent points not found 
combined in any other variety. The Pock¬ 
lington is still larger and perhaps more 
showy than the Niagara, but a notch farther 
down in quality at the usual time of ripen¬ 
ing. We are informed 1 , however, that if al¬ 
lowed to hang several weeks it becomes ex¬ 
cellent. These four sorts all stand high, 
and are all eminently worthy>of trial.” 
