The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-09-03

WASHINGTON, D. c., Sept. s.
What will grapes sell for this fall?
That is a question which is pain
fully agitating thousands of men who
own vineyards, some of whom have
staked their whole fortune on the
grapevine. To less extent it is trou-
bling all of the dealers and middlemen
who have to do with the distribution
of the grape crop.
Prohibition has converted the grow
ing and selling of grapes from quiet
stable industry into a wild and specu-
lative one. The vineyardist, once a
peaceful and contented fellow, has be-
come an excited and distraught one,
who alternately dreams of fabulous
wealth and quakeS at the threat of
bankruptcy.
The answer to the all-important
question, as to what price he should
from few large dealers. Ninety-two
percent of the grapes grown in Amer
lea are grown in California, and most
of these are wine grapes. The rest
are raisin grapes, also grown in Cali
fornia, and the Concord grapes grown
in a few eastern states and sold for
table consumption and for the making
of grape juice. Hence the wine max
ers and the grape juice makers took
the great bulk of the grape crop every
year at fixed figure. The market
was sure and the price did not vary
greatly.
When the threat of prohibition
doomed large, the grape growers saw
in it nothing but prospective ruin.
They fought it with all their might,
and went down to a bitter, bowling
defeat. A year ago last spring, vine
yards could be bought for song.
Some far-sighted men who had the
song bought lot of them.
Fall came with a large crop of
grapes. 1t brought also an army of
buyers. Before prohibition the price
of wine grapes had varied from $40
to $40 a ton, and the price of Concord
grapes from $50 to $40 a ton. With
the manufacture of wine prohibited by
an amendment to the federal consIi-
tuition, and with the manufacture OF
grape juice greatly reduced by high
tax, grapes began to sell at from s65
a ton up. Especially up. Last fall
! wine grapes were actually sold for as
high as 1925 a ton.
A Prohibition Miracle
| The grape grower who had sold his
vineyard tore his hair The man who
bought it made the purchase price on
a single crop. All concerned were re
minded that they lived in a world
where the incredible happens. Pro
| hibition, which was expected to rem
der the grape vine no more valuable
| than gourd, had actually made
/ grapes dearer perhaps than they had
ever been before in human history
| There was never any doubt who
| bought those grapes. They were pur
chased by hundreds of thousands oil
persons who made wine in their OWL
| homes. 1t was estimated on pretty
reliable information that SIS per cent
of the raisin crop also went into the
making of hooch.
| 1t dawned upon the grape grower
that if he had lost one market, he had
most certainly gained another, ap
parently much larger both as to cap
acity and price. Forthwith there was
a boom in vineyards. Those that had
sold for song a year before were
not moved by anything less than {
symphony orchestra this spring
| Thousands of acres were planted ir
grapes. One man worth several mil
lions has risked his whole fortune BY
planting about $4,000 acres.
OF course. none of these vineyard!
which have just been planted will bea,
for three or four years, but the crol
this year has been boosted in anothe
way. Every year the vines ar
pruned, and the amount of grape
which a vineyard will bear depends
upon how much wood, as the crap,
| men say, is left on the vine. If to-
| much wood is left a large crop o
grapes is produced, but the vitality o
the plant is injured. This is callet
over-cropping. Nearly all of the crap
/ growers in the country have overcror
: ped their vines this year in expecta
ton of tremendous prices again. Ever