VOL. LIII. No. 2333, NEW YORK, OCTOBER 13 1894. 
$ 1.00 PER YEAR. 
Grape Notes from the Rural Grounds. 
SEPTEMBER 4. 
Green Mountain grapes are aL eaten. It is a sprightly, 
juicy, tender'-fleshed, excellent little white grape. 
Cottage (black) not yet ripe. Antoinette ripens about 
with Worden, and is much the same in quality. Berry 
white, with bloom, medium size. Bunch medium, 
sometimes shouldered. Vine perfectly hardy and 
healthy. Ulster Prolific is beginning to ripen. Bunches 
medium, berry medium, skin thin but firm. In quality 
it is sweet, pure and excellent. It ripens just before 
Concord, or a few days after Brighton. Keeps well 
and ships well. The vine is short-jointed, overpro- 
ductive, hardy and healthy. 
F. B. Hayes, planted in 1884, for the first time gives 
a full crop, ripening just before Concord. There are 
better varieties of its season. The clusters are often 
loose. Alice is a red grape of high quality and thick 
skin. The bunches are rather small and variable. It 
has not yet been introduced. It ripens with Worden. 
Moore’s Diamond is now ripe. It is, at the Rural 
Grounds, the best white of its season, and the most 
satisfactory in all ways. The clusters are compact; 
the berries cling firmly. It ripens before Hayes, 
Geneva, Esther or Worden. 
Witt (white) is ripening. 
The berries are large, with 
bloom; bunches medium, 
often imperfect, sometimes 
large and showy. Barry 
(Rogers’s 43) ripens about 
with Concord. It is a very 
showy black grape, the 
bunch being broad though 
short, the berries large. 
The vine is hardy and pro¬ 
ductive. Bull’s Esther 
(white with bloom) bears 
heavily, though, this year, 
there are many little grapes 
in the bunches. This may 
be owing to rose-bug in¬ 
juries to the fiowers. Ripens 
with Concord. The fault 
of Wilder here is that the 
berries “ shell off,” and 
the bunches are rarely per¬ 
fect. Pocklington (white) 
thrives here, but it is usu¬ 
ally too late and always 
very foxy. Hosford’s 
Mammoth, from Geo. Hos- 
ford, of Ionia, Mich., No¬ 
vember 15, 1890, bears for 
the first. Bunches large, 
shouldered. Berry (black) 
about the size of Eaton, 
with heavy bloom. It re¬ 
sembles Eaton in all re¬ 
spects, but the pulp seems 
more tender, the quality 
less “watery.” It is cer¬ 
tainly worthy of trial. Victoria (Miner) is a white 
Concord that never fails to bear heavily. 
SEPTEMBER 10. 
Esther has a tougher pulp than Diamond, and does 
not BO readily give up its seeds. Diamond is less foxy, 
too, and the bunches average larger and more perfect. 
Eaton is now fully ripe. Witt (from Geo. W. Camp¬ 
bell) is sweet and sprightly. Some bunches are large, 
the berries large and showy. The pulp is quite tender, 
and the seeds part readily from it. There are usually 
only one or two seeds to a berry. It is foxy, but other¬ 
wise is as good in quality as Diamond. The vine is 
hardy and healthy. Hayes is now ripe, but there is 
nothing to be said in its favor that may not be said of 
Diamond. Worden is fully ripe. The berries average 
larger than Concord, and it seems a few days earlier. 
Pocklington is not yet ripe. 
Niagara thrives splendidly here if in a somewhat 
protected place. It ripened fully before September 15 
this year. The vine is healthy and immensely pro¬ 
ductive, the bunches large, perfect and beautiful. The 
berries average fully as large as those of Worden. 
The pulp is tender and, but for foxiness and a vine 
less hardy than it needs to be for this climate, it is 
really a grand production. 
Geneva is a white grape that ripens this year a few 
days after Green 
Mountain. It is a 
trifle acid, of pure, 
though not high 
quality. Nectar is 
the “Black Dela¬ 
ware,” of A. J. Cay- 
wood. It is fine in 
quality. Bunches 
small, berries larger 
than Delaware, 
black, sweet, 
Early Ohio Grape From Nature. Fig. 167. 
Moore’s Diamond Grape. From Nature. Fig. 168 
sprightly and good. It ripens early—about with 
Diamond. Early Victor is very early, and that is all 
that need be said of it. 
Early Ohio —This new grape (two vines) was re¬ 
ceived from the C. S. Curtice Company, Portland, N, 
Y., May 7, 1893. It has been advertised considerably, 
and the following claims are made for it: “ The best 
grape of its season ; the best early black grape; one 
size smaller than Concord, firm in texture, of a spicy, 
pleasant fiavor ; hangs to the stem with a persistency 
that makes its shipping qualities of the highest order.” 
Our vines bore heavily this year. The berries looked 
to be ripe as early as August 33, but they were sour 
and worthless. At that time Moore’s Early was not 
quite ripe; but'it was* of better.’quality than Early 
Ohio. The quality at its best is inferior. It has noth¬ 
ing but eailiness to commend it. If we could not have 
a better grape, we would go without grapes. Earli¬ 
ness in grapes as in strawberries, is not so valuable a 
characteristic now for the North as it was some years 
ago. The South fills the Northern market with excel¬ 
lent grapes long before the earliest Northern grapes 
mature. The North need no longer care for a first- 
early grape, unless it has something besides earliness 
to commend it. 
Illustrations.— Pig 167 shows the Early Ohio—an 
average cluster. Fig. 168 shows an average cluster cf 
Moore’s Diamond. Pig* 
169 (see page 646) shows 
seven Eaton grapes for 
comparison as to size—all 
as grown at the Rural 
Grounds the present season. 
Remarks. 
During the past 30 years 
the following grapes have 
been tried at the Rural 
Grounds, and discarded as 
either not suited to the 
climate or as inferior to 
other varieties: Centennial, 
Gaertner, Amber Queen, 
Florence, Eldorado, Lady 
Washington, Carlotta, 
Rockingham, Highland, 
Augusta, Lexington, New¬ 
burgh, Goethe, Duchess, 
Quasaic,Telegraph, Martha, 
Herbert, Merrimack, Early 
Victor, Grein’s Golden, 
Downing, Reliance, Amber, 
Elvira, Faith, Pearl, Trans¬ 
parent, Dempsey, Owosso, 
Oberon, Jessica, Empire 
State, Irving, Early Dawn, 
Henry, Braendly,Alphonse, 
Albert, Dr. Warder, Ed¬ 
ward, Ursula, Marie Louise, 
Emma, Barbara, Eumelan, 
Woodruff Red, Cayuga, 
Roenbeck, Roanoke Never- 
fail. Purity, Climax, Grave- 
stock Colorado, White’s 
Northern Muscat, Northern 
Light, Leader, Prentiss, 
Mills, Salem, Bacchus, Jef¬ 
ferson, Advance, Belinda, 
Diana, Don Juan, Minne¬ 
haha, Rebecca, Secretary. 
We have a dozen of 
Munson’s best varieties: 
Campbell, Carman, Hil- 
gard, Rommel, Nimalba, 
Hermann Jaeger, Conelva, 
Brilliant, Beagle. Early 
Market, Pres. Lyon and 
a lost variety, but another year will be needed to 
give us the data of any helpful report. 
Grapes and Bees. —Of a number of white grapes in 
bearing, the Diamond (Moore’s) is by far the best. 
The vines are nearly or quite as hardy as Concord, as 
healthy, vigorous and productive of large beautiful 
clusters. The quality is fine, though not as sweet, as 
a ripe Concord. The Niagara is so far in the rear as 
not to be worth considering, if planting is the ques¬ 
tion. I have never practiced the idiocy of girdling, 
except as an experiment, and have never offered un¬ 
ripe grapes for sale, so I have been able to get five to 
eight cents per pound at home, when our home mar- 
