1906 . 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
YIELD AND PRICE OF GRAPES. 
In the grape districts how many pounds of grapes suit¬ 
able for basketing do they obtain per vine and per acre, and 
what does it cost per five-pound basket to gather and pack? 
Ohio. c. w. m. 
The yield of grapes varies greatly, according to the 
variety, soil, method of culture, season, etc. In this 
locality a Concord vineyard on suitable soil and with 
careful culture, will give from 2)A to five tons; Dela¬ 
ware from one to two tons; Catawba and Niagara from 
two to three tons. A ton of grapes grown without rot 
or other disease, will pack out from 500 to 575 baskets. 
A good average day's work picking is 1,500 pounds, 
and wages are $1.50 per day. It costs about one-half 
cent per basket for sorting and packing, and the basket 
costs from V/t to two cents each. When the business 
is conducted on a large scale and thoroughly systema¬ 
tized, a basket of grapes should be picked, sorted and 
basketed for about 2]/ 3 cents. I think it costs the 
average grower nearer three. e. c. gillett. 
Yates Co., N. Y. 
In the Chautauqua-Erie grape belt, which is a strip 
two to four miles wide, reaching 50 miles or so along 
the shore of Lake Erie from Silver Creek. Chautauqua 
Co., N. Y., to Harbor Creek, Erie Co., Pa., there are 
about 30,000 acres of vineyard, mostly Con¬ 
cord, probably more than 95 per cent. The 
normal yield in this belt is about 7,000 carloads; 
more than half, probably about 60 per cent, 
go out in eight-pound baskets, 3,000 for an 
average carload. A few cars go in four- 
pound baskets, but most of the 40 per cent 
go as “bulk” in 40-pound crates with some 20- 
pound baskets. 
A good well-cared-for vineyard will average 
one year with another 1,000 eight-pound bas¬ 
kets per acre. A few do considerably better 
than this, but the average for the whole belt 
is considerably less, about 750 per acre for 
normal yield. The yield depends somewhat 
on location, but much more on care and man¬ 
agement. Grapes are set usually 9x9, taking 
540 vines per acre; cost is $S to $12 per 1,000 
plants. Entire cost of vineyard, exclusive of 
land, is about $100 per acre; this includes 
plants, stakes, posts, wire, interest on invest¬ 
ment and care for three years, at which time 
returns commence to come in. In this belt 
packing is mostly done in the field; picking 
and packing is one operation. About 5,000 
women and girls are employed in the work. 
Men and boys distribute empty baskets, draw 
in full ones, and do other heavy work. Pick¬ 
ing costs one cent to 1J4 cent per eight- 
pound basket. Piece-work pickers make good 
wages ; it is a very slow one who will put up 
less than 100 baskets per day. Good pickers 
put up 150 to 200 or more. Baskets are 
packed one-half to three-quarters inch more 
than full, and allowed to settle and wilt over 
night in packing house before covering. Price 
for picking four-pound baskets is 60 to 75 
cents per hundred. The day help adds a little 
to'cost of picking, but it is only a small frac¬ 
tion of a cent per basket. “Bulk stock” goes 
direct from vineyards to car. An eight-pound 
basket weighs eight pounds filled and cov¬ 
ered; a four-pound basket weighs a little less 
than four pounds filled and covered. Grapes 
can be produced cheaply here; 10 cents at 
car for eight-pound baskets gives a good re¬ 
turn on investment, on a “good” vineyard at 
a valuation of $300 per acre. Price for 1905 
started in at lO'/z cents, and steadily advanced 
to 16 cents, with some 17 to 18 cents per basket. 
Erie Co., Pa. a. i. loop. 
The yield of Concord grapes (the variety most largely 
grown in the Chautauqua grape belt), will average from 
700 to 1,000 eight-pound baskets per acre, the quantity 
varying with the soil, location and care of vineyard. 
The baskets used are those holding four pounds or 
eight pounds of fruit, exclusive of the weight of the 
basket. By far the larger part of the crop is shipped 
in eight-pound baskets. The cost of picking and haul¬ 
ing to the packing house will average about $6 per 
acre, as nearly as we can estimate, varying of course 
with the distance and size of load that can be carried. 
1 he average price paid for packing i3 about 40 cents 
per 100 four-pound and 75 cents per 100 eight-pound 
baskets. The baskets cost last Fall $18 and $22 per 
1,000 respectively. Few varieties will yield as large 
an average Concord, but,many will bring a higher 
price in market, making the net return to the grower 
quite as good. E. H. pratt. 
Chautauqua Co., N. Y. 
1 he average yield per acre is not quite V/z ton in 
the grape belt of Chautauqua. At that figure grape 
growing is not a bonanza. T enclose to you the returns 
from 1,040 vines of Worden planted 8x8 feet in 13 
rows, 80 vines in the row. By it you will see that 
they produced this year 1,532 eight-pound baskets of 
grapes which sold for $197.56. The baskets cost $18.50 
per 1,000, the picking and packing one cent per basket, 
picking up in the vineyard and delivering to the ship¬ 
ping station $15. This same Worden vineyard pro¬ 
duced in 1895, 915 baskets, sold for $152.49 first year 
bearing; 1896, 1,90S baskets, $154.16; 1897, 2.620, 
$183.29; 1898, 2,000, $142.70; 1S99, 3,176, $266.93; 1900, 
2.764, $228.10; 1901. 2,065, $174.69; 1902, 1,240, $168.02; 
3,100 pounds in bulk, $38.33; 1904, 2,471, $303.16; 1903, 
1,300, $178.20; 1905, 1,532, $197.56; 11 years, $2,187.73. 
I did not give any figures as to cost of cultivation, etc. 
Chautauqua Co., N. Y. G. schoenfeld. 
The grape most grown here is the Concord, the yield 
2(^ to 3Li tons per acre, three tons being considered a 
good yield, though the larger figure may in exceptional 
cases be reached. During the last few years a company 
of Italians have come in the neighborhood and bought 
the grapes by the ton, and had them made into wine at 
the nearby cider mills. For these, just as picked from 
the vines, they paid at first $28 per ton; later on the 
price dropped to $23, $25 being about the average. At 
these prices the growers preferred to dispose of them 
to going through tiie tedious process of packing and 
purchasing crates. There are none sent from here in 
five-pound baskets. Those that are packed are in three- 
pound tills, eight tills in a crate; these cost about 
17 cents each, and will take nearly 100 for a ton, $17; 
the extra cost packing would be $5, at least $22, when 
they can fill any old thing to cart to the mill. Many 
prefer to do so, as cash is paid on delivery. In putting 
in crates it is preferable to take the tills in the vine¬ 
yard, using a movable shelf to set them on, and only 
handle once, leaving the fruit in better condition than 
if taken to the packing house, but many prefer to take 
to the packing shed, each to his own fancy. To 
pack in five-pound baskets comes the cost of baskets, 
which each can calculate in his own locality. It will 
take 400, then if crated add that and you get about the 
extra cost. When there is no demand for wine grapes 
many are shipped in 40 or 50-pound boxes to the city, 
and there used for wine, mostly by the Italians, it mak¬ 
ing a light sour wine, with no sugar added. This is 
about the situation here; the cost of cultivating an 
acre would be scarcely more than an acre of corn. The 
wire and posts of course are added to the first cost. 
Ulster Co., N. Y. n. h. 
Few things are more useful on a good farm than a full 
supply of skim-milk. That Is why the big, heavy milking 
animals are so popular. 
471 
THE USE OF MARL 
A reader in New York, who thinks of moving to Vir¬ 
ginia, writes that farmers near the James River arc 
using large quantities of marl, which is dug up along 
the river bed. It is spread on the soil and plowed 
under, and according to our correspondent is "revo¬ 
lutionizing" the farming of this section. So far as we 
can learn no great use is being made of this marl— 
certainly no more than in former years. Most likely 
the stories about “revolutionizing” the country were 
written by some land speculator. It is a wonder that 
he did not add Horace Greeley’s enthusiastic belief that 
land plaster spread on the ground took nitrogen out of 
the air which blew over it! Marl is a mixture of clay, 
sand and shells, the latter more or less decayed. It 
has been used for many years in a number of States. 
The following note by Prof. Patterson, of Maryland, 
states the facts: 
“We have experimented considerably with the marl 
deposits of this State, and have analyzed all principal 
deposits and classes of marl known to exist in this 
State. Most of these marls contain small amounts of 
phosphoric acid and potash, and some of them will run 
as high as two to four per cent of potash. The potash 
exists in the form of glauconite, which is insoluble in 
water, but would become available through the 
action of lime and weathering material. The 
amount of lime which it contains. This lime 
is chiefly derived from mollusk and oyster 
shells, and generally are in a partially decom¬ 
posed state, so that they soon crumble on ex¬ 
posure to the air. We have used some of this 
marl, which was rich in lime, in our exper¬ 
iments in comparison with finely-ground oyster 
shells, and with stone lime, with the result that 
while the shell marl did not act quite as quickly 
as the caustic lime, at the same time in the 
series of five years it gave better results than 
caustic lime. 
“The shell marls throughout the tide water 
section of Maryland and Virginia could be used 
to good advantage agriculturally on the stiffer 
red clay lands of those sections, and would 
prove just as good and more economical than 
caustic lime. Most of these shell marls contain 
so much matter of no value whatever that it 
is unprofitable to haul or transport it any dis¬ 
tance from the marl beds. There are large 
deposits of this material quite generally dis¬ 
tributed throughout the tide water section, and 
it should be more largely used than at present. 
The use of shell marl through Maryland is not 
increasing, so far as I have been able to dis¬ 
cover, although the use of lime in all parts of 
the State is on the increase/' h. j. patterson. 
A GERMAN ON “ HIRED HELP ” 
A great deal has been said in The R. N.-Y. 
in regard to hired help on farms from New 
York and foreign countries. I came from 
Germany, and landed in New York July 5, 
1884, at that time in Castle Garden. From 
the steamship we were directed to the Hotel 
Stuttgard. I hadn’t had time to rid myself of 
the ocean smut before I was approached by 
an employment agent, saying, “Just landed, 
eh?” and I told him “Yes.” Then he said: “I 
have got a good job for you,” and that was 
what I was looking for, as my means were 
very limited. He said to me: “For $1 I will 
tell you all about it.” I hated awfully to part 
with that dollar, as it was nearly the last 
one, but I did, and secured the job on a north¬ 
ern Vermont farm, for which I sailed the fol¬ 
lowing Monday evening, June 7, 1884. Arriving there I 
found two other Germans, employed on the same farm, 
and of course everything was all satisfactory. There were 
also 15 or more other Germans employed in the sur¬ 
rounding country, and all worked for the same man, 
or in the same neighborhood for years at wages better 
than the average, and it is needless to say I would not 
have stayed all alone, nor any of the rest. We used 
to have a little Germany of our own at least every 
Sunday, and for that reason we all felt at home. Of 
course we were not city chaps, we all had worked on 
farms in Germany. None of us could milk when we 
got here, as men folks do not milk in the old country, 
but anyone can learn to milk in a month’s time if he 
ever would. I have had farmers propose to me to go 
to New York and get them some green Germans, as 
they said, I could talk with them, and I said: “I could 
do that all right, but I would not be responsible if any 
of them did not turn out well,” and of course I never 
went, as I know what few laborers there are here would 
be jealous. If I had to depend on hired help I would 
never get any of them that had been roaming in New 
York or any other city, but would take them green 
right off the ship, and I would not advise to get one 
alone, as they would never stay. It is equally as dis¬ 
agreeable for the hired man as it is for the farmer when 
they cannot understand one another, at least as long 
as the foreigner cannot understand the English a little 
bit.” L0V!§ MEYER, 
Vermont, 
FLOWERING BRANCH OF ANDROMEDA FLORIBUNDA. 
Fig. 191. See Ruralisms, Page 474. 
