Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-09-05
The Agitated
Grape Grower
ny Frederic J. Haskin

Washington. Sept. s.-What viii
grapes sell for this fall7
That is a question which Is main
fully agitating thousands of men who
own vineyards. some OF whom have
staked their whole fortune on the
grapevine. To a less extent IL IL
dIefnen VINO have 10 do With the us
tribution OF the grape crop.
Prohibition has converted the grow
ing and selling Of grapes from a quiet
4 able industry into wild and specu-
iative one, The vineyardist, once a
peaceful and contented fellow, has
become an excited aud distraught one.
who alternately dreams of fabulous
wealth and quakes at the threat of
bankruptcy.
The answer TO the all-important
question, az TO what price he should
get for his grapes, formerly came from
few large dealers Ninety-two per
cent of the grapes grown i'm America
are grown in California, and most of
these are wine grapes. The rest are
raisin grapes. also grown in Califor-
mia, 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 makers
and the grape juice makers took the
great bulk of the grape crop every
year at a 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 il nothing but prospective ruin.
They fought ii with all their might
and went down to a bitter. bowling
defeat. year ago last spring. vine
yards could be bought for a song
Some far-sighted men who had the
song bought a lot of them
Fall came with large erop of
grapes. IL brought also an army of
buyers, Before prohibition the price
of wine grapes had varied from s10
10 S20 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 Con-
stitution, and with the manufacture
of grape juice greatly reduced by a
high tax, grapes began TO sell at from
sos ton up. Especially up. Last
fall. wine grapes We're actually sold for
as high as 1925 ton.
A Prohibition Miracle.
The grape grower who had sold his
yinyard tore his hair. The man who
had bought 1t made .the purchase
price on a single crop. All concerned
We're reminded that, they lived in a
world where the incredible happens
Prohibition, which was expected To
render the grape vine no more valu
able 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
bought by hundreds of thousands of
persons who made wine in their
homes. 1t was estimated on nreftv
reliable information that 65 per cent
Of the raisin crop also went into the
making of "hooch.'
IL dawned upon the grape grower,
that if he had lost one market he
had most certainly gained another
apparently much larger both as 10
capacity and price. Forthwith there
was boom in vineyards. Those thai
'+"o Noia Aoi sohs y year before
were not moved by anything less than
a symphony orchestra this spring
Thousands of acres were planted m
grapes. One man worth several mil
lions has risked his whole fortune bv
planting about I5. 900 acres.
OF course, none of these vineyards
which have just been planted will
bear for three or -four years, bur The
srop this year has been boosted in