The Vineyard Situation in New York 
Pakt I. 
Rkgulau Yields. —The heading of 
tiiis article might oven have been more 
broad and included Eastern United States, 
for the vineyardist of this entire area is 
facing a combination of conditions that 
at first hand appear almost unsurmount- 
able. but the writer is optimistic enough 
to believe that all the difficulties will be 
overcome in the end. and the industry 
placed on a foundation more enduring 
than before. The farmer of New York 
need not be told that the Winter of 1917- 
1918 was a severe one. lie fully realized 
it at the time the low temperatures pre¬ 
vailed. but if he be a fruit grower he 
has been realizing it. ever since. In the 
10 years that the Experiment Vineyards 
nave been operated at Fredonia there has 
not been a complete failure of the grape 
crop. In no one of the 10 years has the 
yield fallen below a quarter crop, taking 
the entire acreage as a basis. This in¬ 
cludes vineyards that have had but little 
care for the past several years, vineyards 
that have been abandoned and then re¬ 
juvenation undertaken, and vineyards 
that have seldom if ever produced more 
than a ton to the acre. In one year of 
the 10 a oO-per-eeut normal crop was 
harvested, while at least three years have 
returned harvests considerably above the 
average for the 10 years previous. The 
writer is positive that no fruit crop in 
New York returns a yield from year to 
year as consistently as the vine, consid¬ 
ering the .State by and large. We have 
seen many total peach failures within 
this same period, not a few short crops 
for the apple, while the small fruit 
grower has had in some years to be con- 
tent with returns that fell far short of 
meeting the expense of growing. 
Not All Profit. —Of course it is not 
intended to further the impression that 
all vineyards in the Chautauqua and 
T ake Erie Fruit Belt have been profit¬ 
able over the 10-year period, for it must 
be clearly understood that many hundred 
acres here have never been money-makers, 
nor will they ever be. These mostly 
were planted in the days of vineyard 
boom, when selling prices for the fruit 
were abnormally high and the induce¬ 
ment was strong to put all farm lands 
out to vineyard. The error of this was 
soon realized and it soon came to be 
realized that all land is not adapted to 
grape growing. It is these vine relies 
of the past that have brought down the 
average yields for the district. Other 
parts of the State in which grapes are 
The dominant crop have had a like ex¬ 
perience. It is common in this locality 
to hear the statements of the older grow¬ 
ers that it was only necessary to stick 
a grape root in the soil and it would 
Hourish like the Biblical bay tree. In 
fact it was the exception that a vine died 
after it once was brought into contact 
with the soil. It is quite conceivable 
that the soils of this part of the State 
were well supplied with humus, and that 
the moisture storage capacity of the soil - 
was considerably greater than it is now. 
But years of intensive culture of the 
vine have changed all this. As the hu¬ 
mus has gone so has the soil become sub¬ 
jected to the extremes of moisture. Over¬ 
wetness followed by drought has suc¬ 
ceeded year by year and each year the 
vines became poorer. 
Root-worm Attacks. —These already 
badly weakened vines were in turn at¬ 
tacked by grape root-worm, which re¬ 
moved a large area of the feeding root 
system. Their periodic attacks have 
been followed by a partial rejuvenation, 
but the struggle has been the more diffi¬ 
cult after each invasion. One often hears 
the statement that this pest attacks vine¬ 
yards on the poorer, heavier soils. This 
is not the case, but it is true that the 
ravages of this insect in vineyards on this 
type or class of soils have proven the 
more injurious, for the reason that, as a 
rule, the vines here were less able to 
withstand the attack, while the character 
of the soil has made the development 
of a new root system difficult. There is 
another class of vineyards fairly common 
to this section: those that are planted 
on the recognized best soil for growing 
the vine, but which for this reason have 
had little if any of the necessary 
plant foods returned to them. In other 
words, the statement of some few grow¬ 
ers. without any foundation in fact, that 
the vineyards of Uhautauqua County 
could go on indefinitely producing fruit 
and wood without the addition of fer¬ 
tilizers has proven decidedly one of error 
and it has caused havoc to the plantings 
of those who were so deluded. There 
seems to be one outstanding correlation 
between the injury to the vine and the 
health of the vine before the injury oc¬ 
curred, namely, other conditions being tin 1 
same, the injury from the cold of the 
\\ inter of 1!>17-1918 was proportional to 
the vigor of the plant. The more healthy 
rhe vine the less severely was it injured. 
The vineyard with vines' with but a poor 
root system suffered in the extreme, while 
that in good condition in this respect 
escaped with a moderate amount of kill¬ 
ing. Every grape grower now recognizee 
this correlation, and if words prove 1 deeds 
every effort will henceforth be made to 
so care for the vines that their resistance 
to Winter cold will be increased. 
Winter Injury. —It should not be in¬ 
ferred from the above statement that all 
vines in good vigor escaped severe in¬ 
jury, for the factor of exposure to the 
prevailing winds of Winter and that of 
protective wind-breaks exerted a tremen¬ 
dous influence. Vineyards cultivated late 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
in the fruit maturing period also suffered 
more than those in which green manure 
crops were seeded in late July or early 
August. Those on wet soils suffered more 
severely than those on the more dry, for 
the reason that the wet soil had limited 
the normal development of root system 
attaining on the lighter soils. What is 
to be the future of the vineyard industry 
in Western New York as a result of this 
setback? Will it be worth while in view 
of the arrival of national prohibition to 
continue the industry on the scale that 
has hitherto been maintained? Will it 
be possible to rejuvenate the less severely 
injured vineyards? Is it advisable to 
plant areas of commercial size? To all 
of these questions I answer in the affirm¬ 
ative. 
. Unusual Weather Conditions. —It 
is rare that a combination of unfavorable 
weather conditions exists as maintained 
in the Fall of 1017 at the time when the 
trmt and wood normally mature, and the 
L._ S. Weather Bureau tells us that the 
Winter of 1917-1018 made a record iu 
the history of the Bureau, and for once 
at least we are willing to believe the 
weather man.. It is thus evident that 
this combination was unusual, and ac- 
cording to the law of chance it is doubt¬ 
ful if the combination occurs again. At 
any rate, it seems perfectly safe to plant 
grapes in any of the sections that have 
proven adapted for the purpose over a 
period of years. The vine has withstood 
lower temperatures than occurred during 
the Winter of 1917-1918. but the low 
temperatures coupled with the poorly 
matured wood and bud tissues proved the 
undoing. Hundreds of acres in Western 
New York have succumbed to the cold, 
or rather the cold compelled the ruin that 
was inevitable, regardless of anv specific 
cause. Vineyards that had but a few 
years to live were hastened to their end 
by the low temperatures. Many other 
acres not completely killed out will never 
iigain be a consideration in the industry. 
It is a conservative estimate that the 
area of grapes in the Chautauqua and 
Lake Erie belt has been reduced by .“.000 
acres within the past five years, and this 
does not allow for the vineyards that are 
now practically out. but have not been 
torn out. F. E. GLADWIN. 
Treatment of Garden Soil in Maryland 
YVe have half an acre of garden, south¬ 
ern aspect, medium stiff clay. What fer¬ 
tilizers and cover crops do you advise for 
best results? 
Brookeville, Md. 
You say this is a clay soil. The chief 
need of such a soil is usually more or¬ 
ganic decay to make it mellow and less 
liable to bake. Such a soil, well stocked 
with vegetable material and occasionally 
limed, will release plenty of its store of 
insoluble potash for the need of any crop. 
Annual heavy dressings of stable manure 
will furnish nitrogen, but * you depend 
on manure alone you may get'the needed 
organic decay. Taut also get a one-sided 
condition, an excess of nitrogen as com¬ 
pared with the mineral elements. There¬ 
fore. if you depend on manure for the 
humus-making material, you should re¬ 
inforce it well with acid phosphate. Peo¬ 
ple often complain that their garden has 
got so rich that it will not make potatoes, 
though making enormous tops. The 
trouble is not that the soil has got too 
rich, but is one-sided. Big tops are all 
right if the plant food that makes the 
potatoes is present—phosphorus and pot¬ 
ash. Your soil in Montgomery County is 
naturally stocked with an inexhaustible 
store of silicate of potash, which only 
needs the humic acid and lime to release 
it as fast as crops need it. You can ac¬ 
complish similar results by running your 
half-acre garden in two parts. Plant 
the earlier crops all on oue half and the 
late, crop on the other half. After the 
earlier Spring and Summer crops arc off. 
sow that half in Crimson clover thickly 
in late July or early August, and rake iii 
the seed lightly. Plant early crops where 
the later ones were the year before, and 
sow Crimson clover ou this part. Turn 
under in bloom the clover sown the Fall 
before for the late Summer and Winter 
crops, and keep up that rotation till the 
soil gets well filled with vegetable decay, 
using, on the late crops only commercial 
fertilizer,, and cover the half without 
clover with manure. Give both parts 
phosphate in Spring at rate of about 
uOO pounds for the whole garden. 
W. F. MASSEY. 
35 
Checking Lettuce in Frame 
I have a cold frame filled with lettuce 
plants and they are growing too fast. 
The leaves cover the ground. Would it lie 
advisable to cut them back? What do 
you advise to do with them? Q.n. 
Bridgeton, N. .T. 
\\ hen lettuce plants are growing in cold 
frames over Winter, the only thing that 
will check their growth is to keep them 
cool at all times; that means to ventilate 
freely whenever the temperature ap¬ 
proaches a degree favorable for growth. 
Most likely you have done this. If you 
have, and the plants are beginning to 
crowd on one another, it will be very 
necessary either to transplant them so 
that they will have more room, or else, as 
is often the case, it will e advisable to 
start a lot of new plants from the seed. 
( uttiug them back, as you suggest, would 
be very detrimental to the productive 
ability of the growth, because a very large 
percentage of such plants would shoot the 
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