Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1872-09-19
Summit, Pike county, MISS.
A NEW WAY TO PREVENT GRAPE ROT.

That distinguished Pomologist, DR.. A. P.
Wylie, of Chester, S. c., writes to the Reporter
of that town, the following communication,
which we are sure, will interest, and which
may profit grape growers:
wish to call the attention of the public to
remedy which, although not at all fully tes-
ted, promises to be of immense Importance to
the public. In the year Of 1871, desired to
impregnate the Herbemont Grape, also the
Bland Madeira and Foreign, No. 1, very
large October grape, with the pollen from
Peter Wylie, No. l, so as to produce Hybrid
or cross progeny. Knowing that both the
Herbemont, Bland and Madeira Hybrid No.
/, would surely nearly all rot as they had been
invariably doing in that locality, concluded
to keep the hybridized punches covered with
paper bags putting small pinch of sulphur
in each bag and keeping the bags on from the
time they bloomed until they ripened; to my
surprise not berry rotted, when every other
bunch on those vines rotted, leaving scarcely
berry.
When Mr.. Ravenel, of Aiken, visited me
in the fall of 1871, I called his attention to
the remarkable fact. Although the expert
ment had been tried only on very small
scale, still I determined to give it further
trial this summer. Unfortunately was ab-
sent from home until the latter part of June,
so that got but few put on before the 1st
of July. am satisfied that it will more cer-
tainly succeed when put on at the earliest Pc
riod. I ordered from Howlet Brothers, 204
Fulton street, New York, 1000 bags from
eight to ten inches long, and about six wide;
q few blue ones, but mostly white. | have
put on over a thousand bags, after either
blowing the bunch over with sulphur bel
lows, or dropping small quantity of sulphur
into each bag, then drawing the bags over the
punches and pinning them with one or two
small pins around the stem, so as to keep out
rain, birds and insects. So far the experiment
is entirely successful, not rotten berry to be
seen, except on one vine, which was rotting
badly at the time they were put on.
The plan is simple and cheap half grown
children can easily do it, and one person
could put on 1000 easily day. Pins are
much more convenient than paste. By cult
waiting grapes on elevated beds or ridges twen-
ty feetapart, with deep water burrows between
the rows to secure drainage, using the sui phur
bellows when they first start in leaf and ap-
plying bags at the time Of blooming in con-
junction with the soil and modes adopted by
good cultivators, I believe that there is hope
for the foreign grape to succeed without glass.
There is no danger of rain wetting off the
bags which Howlet can supply.
FENCE Posrs.-The following experience
on the mooted question whether fence posts
will last longer when set in the same position
in which they grew, or vice versa, is given by
writer: Some twenty-three or four years
since I set fence, inclosing house and door
yard-a rail and banister fence. The posts
were sawed from good-sized, frst-growth chest
nut logs To saw them tapering, one-half of
them must be sawed to set in the ground, top
down, and the other half bottom down. The
posts were set promiscuously, and to this day
there has been no distinguishable difference
in their lasting quality, unless it be where
some of them had more sap on them than
others, and these gave out first without re-
gard to which end was set down.