Open Air Grape Culture - A Practical Treatise on the Garden and Vineyard Culture of the Vine, and the Manufacture of Domestic Wine

John Phin

• Publisher: Cornford Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781528761604
• Topic: Arte
• Subtopic: Artes culinarias

This volume contains a practical treatise on the garden and vineyard culture of the vine, with information on the manufacture of domestic wine. Written in simple, plain language and profusely illustrated, this book is ideal for the novice grower, and is not to be missed by collectors of vintage horticultural literature. Contents include: "Natural and Civil History of the Vine", "Choice of Soil", "Situation", "Aspect", "Necessity for Protection from Wind and Storms", "Preparation of the Soil", "Draining", "Trenching", "Subsoil Ploughing", "Manuring", "Terracing", "Construction of Vine Borders for Garden", et cetera. Many vintage books like this are becoming increasingly rare and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality addition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on making wine. "Open Air Grape Culture" was first published in 1862.

OPEN AIR GRAPE CULTURE.

CHAPTER I.

NATURAL AND CIVIL HISTORY OF THE VINE.

PROFANE history reaches not back to the time when man first planted a vineyard and made wine, and when we leave the sacred records, its first culture is shrouded in allegories, myths and fables.

The native country of the vine cannot be well ascertained. It occurs wild in Greece, Italy and even in the south of France. In Mingrelia, Georgia and the regions between Caucasus and Ararat and Taurus, it flourishes in extreme vigor and great abundance. And that it is indigenous to America, also, there can be no doubt, the apocryphal stories about its introduction by Sir W. Raleigh to the contrary notwithstanding.

Records of its culture are found in most of the poems and sculptures of antiquity. The shield of Achilles represented a vine-gathering, and Herodotus and Theophrastus speak of the culture of the vine in Egypt; and on the very oldest Greek tombs are found pictures representing the vine harvest. Pliny enters fully into the natural history of the vine, and describes a variety with berries shaped like the finger,* while the second book of Virgil’s Georgies forms no mean treatise on practical viticulture.

The generic name of the vine (vitis) is derived, according to some authors, from the Latin vincire to bind; according to others it comes from viere, to bend, alluding to the flexibility of its branches. Both these Latin words, however, are derived from a Greek word signifying to bind. Dr. Whittaker, in a work published in 1638, entitled, “The Tree of Human Life, or the Blood of the Grape,” expresses his opinion that the name vinum is derived a vi from its strength, or, perhaps quasi divinum, because it is a species of the tree of life in Paradise.

The species of the genus vitis are numerous, though botanists are not agreed as to the distinctive differences, especially as between the European and American sorts. In France, Chaptal, when Minister of the Interior, caused 1,400 different varieties of the vine to be collected in the garden of the Luxembourg, and under his direction M. Champagny described as distinct 550 different kinds. Four American species have been usually numbered (some authors describe eight), though the varieties, more or less distinctly marked, probably exceed 300. To the number of the latter, however, there is no limit, as every seed may produce a new variety.

The vine lives to a great age and attains a great size. Pliny mentions a vine which had lived for 600 years, and in Italy, vineyards have continued in bearing for 300 years, while in some parts of that country, a vineyard of 100 years is still accounted young.

Its size, whether we regard the European or American varieties, is often very great. Speechly describes and figures a vine trained against a row of houses in Northallerton, Yorkshire, which covered a space of one hundred and thirty seven square yards, and had a stem three feet eleven inches in circumference at a short distance from the ground. No work on the grape vine would be complete without a mention of the great Hampton Court vine, from which George the Third once directed his gardener to cut one hundred dozen bunches of grapes, if so many were on the vine, and present them to the players of Drury-lane Theatre, who had greatly pleased him. The gardener not only cut off this number, but sent word to the king that he could cut off as many more without entirely stripping the vine. This vine was planted in 1769 and has a stem fourteen inches in girth, one branch extending nearly 200 feet.

In America, too, very large vines are to be found. The following is clipped from the “Alta Californian:”

“At Monticito, four miles from Santa Barbara, there is a grape vine, probably the largest in the world. Its dimensions and yield would be incredible, were it not that my informant is a man of veracity, and he spoke from personal observation. It is a single vine, the main stock being ten feet in circumference. It is trained upon a trellis sixty feet in diameter. My informant with another person counted 7000 bunches, and the estimated yield was 18,000 pounds of fruit. Can this be beaten? The only thing that surprised me in the relation of my friend was that any person in Santa Barbara should have displayed the energy necessary to build the trellis for this noble vine.”

In the “Horticulturist” for October, 1858, a vine growing near Burlington, New Jersey, is described as follows: “In May last it was measured with the following result: Two feet from the ground it measured 6 feet, 2 1/2 inches in girth; four feet high it is about 6 inches less; it there divides into two branches, the largest of which is 3 feet, 3 inches in girth, and the smallest is 3 inches. The largest of the trees which the vine covers is 10 feet in circumference at two feet from the ground. The vine is very much decayed, but still puts forth leaves and young shoots. It has never borne a grape in the memory of a lady now 98 years old and who has lived her long life within sight, or nearly so, of this gigantic production, and to whom it was a wonder in her youth. The largest tree is a black oak, the others are black, or sour gum. On pacing the circumference covered by the branches, it was found to exceed 100 feet.

“This vine grows near a springy soil, or upland, its roots, no doubt, penetrating to the water. May not this teach us a lesson, to give the rootlets, wherever it is possible, access to a spring, or running water? It may be a question, too, whether we do not cut our vines too much. I have observed frequently in England that a whole house was devoted to a single vine, generally of the Black Hamburgh, and I think they uniformly bore the finest grapes. To carry a single vine over a large grapery would, of course, require years of judicious trimming and management.”

The bunches and berries also have been known to attain a very great size. In the south of France instances are known of bunches attaining a weight of eight or ten pounds; travellers in Syria mention bunches weighing 17 lbs.; and we all remember the enormous clusters which the Jewish spies brought back from the promised land. Even at the present day the grapes of Damascus frequently weigh 25 pounds to the bunch.

With all the vigor and fruitfulness evinced by such instances it is no wonder that the culture of the vine should prove profitable and certain. At the meeting of the Fruit Growers’ Society for western New York, held in the city of Rochester in 1859, S. H. Ainsworth made some statements as to the actual products of several vineyards, showing that from $1000 to $1500 had been realized from an acre of Isabella grapes. Mr. Rush, of East Bloomfield, had 100 vines on one-third of an acre, from which he picked 4000 lbs., which he sold for $500, or at the rate of 12 1/2 cts. per pound. None reported a less profit than $500 per acre.

From the very first settlement of America the vine attracted the attention of the colonists, and efforts were made both to introduce the finer European varieties and to cultivate the native sorts. Even as early as 1564, wine was made from the native grape in Florida, though, of course, in small quantity.

The earliest attempt to establish a vineyard in the British North American colonies was by the “London Company” in Virginia prior to 1620. By the year 1630, the prospects were sufficiently favorable to warrant the importation of several French vignerons, who, it was alleged, ruined them by bad management. Wine was also made in Virginia in 1647, and in 1651 premiums were offered for its production. On the authority of Beverley, who wrote prior to 1722, there were vineyards in that colony which produced 750 gallons a year.

In 1664, Col. Richard Nicolls, the first English governor of New York, granted to Paul Richards of the city of New York the privilege of making and selling wine free of all duty or impost, Richards having been the first to enter upon the culture of the vine on a large scale. It was also enacted that every person who should during the succeeding thirty years set out a vineyard should pay to Richards five shillings for every acre of vines so set out. We have been unable, however, to find any account of his success or failure, and the probability is, that after a short time the enterprise was abandoned. A gentleman in Hoboken, also, had a fine vineyard which after a little time fell into decay.

Beauchamp Plantagenet, in his “Description of the Province of New Albion,” published in London in 1648, states that the English settlers in Uvedale (now Delaware) had vines running on mulberry and sassafras trees, and that there were four kinds of grapes. “The first is the Tholouse Muscat, sweet scented; the second, the great fox and thick grape, after five moneths reaped, being boyled, and salted, and well-fined is a strong red Xeres; the third, a light claret; the fourth, a white grape, creeps on the land maketh a pure, gold-colored wine. Tennis Pale, the Frenchmen, of these four made eight sorts of excellent wine; and of the Muscat, acute boyled, that the second draught will fox (intoxicate) a reasonable pate four moneths old; and here may be gathered and made two hundred tun in the vintage moneth, and replanted will mend.”

In 1683, William Penn attempted to establish a vineyard near Philadelphia, but without success. The same result attended the efforts of Andrew Doré in 1685, but after some years, Mr. Tasker, of Maryland, and Mr. Antil, of Shrewsbury, N. J., seem to have succeeded to a certain extent. Mr. Antil wrote an excellent article on the culture of the grape and the manufacture of wine, which may be found in the first volume of the “Transactions of the American Philosophical Society,” published in 1771. In this article, Mr. Antil describes only foreign varieties, from which it is to be inferred that he cultivated them chiefly, if not solely.

In 1769, the French settlers in Illinois made one hundred and ten hogsheads of strong wine from native grapes.

In 1793, Peter Legaux, a French gentleman, obtained of the legislature of Pennsylvania the incorporation of a company for cultivating the vine. They purchased a farm at Spring-mill, Montgomery county, thirteen miles from Philadelphia, on the Schuylkill. For one year only were prospects favorable; divisions and dissensions arose; the stockholders sold out in disgust, and the vineyard went to ruin.

At Harmony, near Pittsburg, a vineyard of ten acres was planted and cultivated by Frederick Rapp and his associates from Germany. They afterward removed to another Harmony in Indiana, on the east bank of the Wabash, where they continued the cultivation of wine and silk for many years.

A Swiss colony settled about 1790 in Jessamin county, Kentucky, and raised a fund of ten thousand dollars for the express purpose of forming a vineyard. Their first attempts failed, they having cultivated the foreign vine. In 1801, they removed to a spot which they called Vevay, in Switzerland County, Indiana, on the Ohio River, forty-five miles below Cincinnati. Here they planted native vines and met with some success. But, after forty years’ experience, they consider our climate and soil inferior to those of Switzerland, as they claim that they can there make a gallon of wine from ten pounds of grapes while here twelve pounds are required. Their vineyards have now, we believe, nearly disappeared.

But the great turning point of vine culture in America was when the Catawba grape was introduced by Major Adlum, of Georgetown, D. C., who considered that in so doing he conferred a greater benefit upon the American nation than he would have done by paying off the national debt.

We could have wished to give an accurate view of the present state of the vine culture of this country, but the best works which we have been able to consult are very imperfect in this respect, and we believe that we have examined all the more important ones. Want of time has prevented us from instituting a special correspondence on this subject. We can therefore only say that it never at any period presented a more flourishing aspect than it does at the present day.

Of the future prospects of grape culture, of its extent, and of its influences, it would be difficult to speak. But we feel assured that, whether in the form of wine or of fruit, the produce of the vine cannot fail to do much good in this country—not the least of its benefits being that it will afford those with small capital an easy and pleasant mode of securing a competency.

Another point in this aspect of grape culture, and one in which we have strong confidence and ardent hope, is the employment which it promises to afford to women. We are none of those who would desire to see woman rendered independent of man, for we well know to what a miserable condition man would come if rendered independent of woman, and it is a poor rule that will not work both ways.

But we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that there are vast multitudes of women whose labor receives no adequate remuneration—who make shirts at the rate of five cents apiece, and then often get cheated out of their pay. Now, if some of our large-hearted, as well as large-worded, philanthropists would procure a few acres of land in some proper locality, and after having it well trenched or subsoil ploughed, would let it out in half, or even quarter acre lots to industrious women with a view to their establishing vineyard plots, we think that after the first two years such an allotment of half an acre ought to yield its tenant from §250 to §400 per year, from which, after paying a good round rent, they might retain more than they can now make at any other employment within their reach. And let it not be said that the culture of the soil is unsuited to the sphere of woman. We rather think that Eve was more of a gardener than shirt-maker before she “brought sin into the world and all our woe;” and those who think gardening unsuited to woman are referred to Loudon’s remarks in the “Gardener’s Magazine,” where he recommends it to his fair countrywomen instead of the ball-room and the dance.

We shall not stultify ourselves with referring to Indian and European savages, who make the women do all the hard work, even though women are there found equal to the roughest agricultural labor. But in vine culture, after the first great effort has been made to get the soil suitably prepared, there is really little hard work to be done. Even hoeing does not require more strength than washing and scrubbing; and pruning, trimming, and gathering the fruit are not above the strength of our weakest females; and we promise them that if they undertake it they will soon acquire the necessary health and strength. All that we can say is that we hope ere long to see the experiment tried, and nothing would afford us greater pleasure than to give a lecture on vine culture, with experimental illustrations, to such a society of women, and tell them all we know about raising good grapes; and we think we can point to others who are not only competent but willing to assist in the good work—thus rendering the objection that “women don’t know how” of no avail. But even if no such experiment should be tried, we feel confident that the thousands of acres which will be devoted to vine culture during the next few years will not be cultivated without affording abundant work for women.

* Most of the authors who have noticed this variety, suppose it to have been lost, but we have received from John Kolber, Esq., of New York, slips of a vine imported by him from Hungary, the fruit of which is described as being an inch and a half long and half an inch in dia...