The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1870-11-08
agricultural department.
BY ALBERT CHAPMAN


The following article on grapes we take
from the Rural Newly orker. While
all the ideas will not answer for our loca-
ton, there are many suggestions valuable
for grape growers everywhere:
Come with me, friends of the Rural
Newly orker, and let us 60 among the
grapes. have nothing specially new to
show you, but each year as the varieties
ripen l like to have my friends 60 with
me among them, taste this and that, and
compare for it is by such comparisons
that | learn. We do not all taste alike,
and yet after | have had half dozen
friends with me an hour or two, tasting
this and that variety, and 20 over their
notes, l find that whatever their prejudi-
ces from long acquaintance with variety
they inadvertently tell what their taste
says at the time. But come let's 90.
Here first we come to the
MILES.
The vine is one given me by Charles
Downing, four years since, and has since
the second year borne full crop, and so
far has been the first sweet eating grape
on the place. 1t is true the berry and
and the bunch are both small but the
vine is so hardy, it ripens so early and
evenly, hangs SO long--say six weeks aft
er it is fit to eat-for these now, as you
see, are firm to the bunch. 1t is Septem-
Der 4th and August 4th many tasters
went with me among my vines, and all
wanted to eat; SO, also, my children. 1t
is little thick in skin, and while the
flesh is sweet, and rich, and spicy, the
seeds are large, and there is hardness
of the flesh surrounding them, that as you
see, even now has not gone, nor will it.
But, good friend Rural, you, as well as
|, and every one who grows grapes, want
one Or more vines, according as We have
room, of the Miles. You see our soil is
stiff shaley clay, and by many who pre-.
tend to, but don't know their subject,
would be called hard chance yet you
see Miles has done well in it. And
here is
Just six feet from Miles, and planted same
time. 1t is an early sort, but you see
the punches are far from being good ; yet
the berries are almost as large as Isabel
la. But while it colors early it does not
ripen as early as Hartford, has hard
center, drops its foliage, and no man who
knows grapes should plant it. And now
we have next
ADIRONDACK.
All these vines you see are planted and
cultivated alike, in thin, shaley clay
six by eight feet apart, no underdrainage'
but care given to surface drainage So
we can judge pretty well Of their
comparative values on such soils but
with some it may be no test of value for
sandy or rich aluvial loans. Here, |
say, is Adirondack, given me by its pro-
mulgator, j. w. Bailey and its punches,
as you see, are full, every berry ripe, and
while it is sweet, the sweet is watery like
that Of watermelon, rather than like
the richness of grape. And just here
comes an item of taste. You, perhaps, |
like this watery sweet, while your neigh
Dor prefers the harsh astringency which
is in this little
variety that much resembles the Gin
ton, but has smaller, or rather shorter
punches, with berries Of about the same
size; and, although they color as early
as Miles, and get fit to eat-if they are
ever fit to eat-by the time Adirondack
comes in, yet they will hold until after
frost, as we'll as Clinton, and make SUI
perior red wine. Next we have
ISABELLA,
which does not, as you see, color as soon
as Adirondack but makes fine, compact
bunch, and is just about as good as the
Miles in quality, with the same thick skin
and hard center. 1t is the best, howev-
er, for the public, of the two that DR..
Grant ever sent out ; and had he confined
himself to this and pushed it, the public
would have had greater benefit than from
the one he did push. What! You don't
believe me? Well, l can't help it; there
are some others who do not and yet
tell you DR.. Grant did more by his mis-
representation of the Iona as being an
early maturing grape, and by his sending
out of many thousands of miserable, soft,
spongy, half.ripened, rooted vines, to in.
jurc grape-growing and its progress,
than any man who has lived during
the last half century. But let's to
vine of
just eight feet from Miles, planted at
the same time-a fve-dollar plant-and
see how its fruit compares with Cataw-
ba, planted year afterward, and now in
the next row, eight feet distant. The To-
ma had few miserable punches on it last
year for the first time and now it has
some good ones, and they are colored
so are the Catawbas, but neither are fit
to eat. know the Iona is good
grape, aye, superior grape when it can
be got ripe, but it takes long season to
do it-as long as for the Catawba or Di-
ana and then it won't bear grief, no
more than its first promulgator, but must
be constantly petted and even then is
only good in certain sections. Now let
us to the next, the
CONQUEROR.
But what its originator could have i'm
agined it to conquer no man can tell.-
There it is--a round black grape of the
size of small Delaware, bunch with
six berries on it-stop! here is bunch
which has seven berries Give the devil
his due, and then kick him out, and his
other New Jersey humbug, called the
CHALLENGE,
with round berries of color Of Catawba,
and half its size; punches containing a
bout eight or ten berries each, and SO