New YorK AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 497 
length confines the lake influence to a narrow space, tempering 
the inshore breezes of the day and off-shore breezes of the 
night. These keep the air in nearly constant motion, averting 
frosts in spring and autumn and preventing the formation of 
heavy dews and fogs. 
The Chautauqua district has a system of pruning and train- 
ing peculiar to itself. Posts six to eight feet in height are set 
every third vine, with two wires running through the row; 
the lower one 28—82 inches above the ground and the upper 22— 
36 inches above the first, each varying in height according to 
the size or age of the vine. The arms are tied to the lower wire 
and the canes and shoots to the upper. Cultivation varies 
greatly but is thorough by the best growers. Spraying is not 
generally practiced owing to the freedom of the district from 
pests. 
THE CENTRAL LAKES DISTRICT. 
The Central Lakes district is made up chiefly of three dis- 
tinct localities about Keuka, Canandaigua and Seneca Lakes, 
though the vineyards of this region are in the five counties of 
Ontario, Yates, Schuyler, Steuben and Seneca. Vineyards sur- 
round Keuka Lake in Yates and Steuben counties, the southern 
half of Seneca, and all except the lower end of Canandaigua 
Lake. There are less extensive plantings about Naples, Bath 
and Romulus. The soil, climate, varieties and methods of 
culture are so similar in all these areas that they can easily 
be grouped into one district. 
Unlike the first attempts in the Chautauqua district, the 
first plantings made in this district at Hammondsport, in 1836, 
by Rey. William Bostwick, were successful. The varieties were 
Isabella and Catawba. Scattered plantings in gardens about 
Keuka followed this attempt. In 1853 Andrew Reisinger, a 
German vine-dresser, planted a commercial vineyard of two 
acres of Isabellas and Gatawbas at Harmonyville. Two years 
later Hon. Jacob Larrowe and Mr. Orlando Shephard planted 
small vineyards of the same varieties in Pleasant Valley near 
