The Rural Manuals
Edited by L. H. BAILEY
The Rural Manuals
Edited by L. H. BAILEY
MANUAL OF
AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING
BY
U. P. HEDRICK
HORTICULTURIST OF THE NEW YORK AGRICULTURAL
EXPERIMENT STATION
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1919
All rights reserved
Copyright, 1919,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Setup and electrotyped. Published June, 1919.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
Seventy-nine books on grapes enrich the pomology of North America, notcounting numerous state and national publications. Pomological writersin America have been partial to the grape, for other fruits do notfare nearly so well. Twenty-two books are devoted to the strawberry,fourteen to the apple, to the peach nine, cranberry eight, plum five,pear nine, quince two, loganberry one, while the cherry, raspberry,and blackberry are not once separated from other fruits in specialbooks. Thus, though a comparative newcomer among the fruits of thecountry, the grape has been singled out for a treatise more times thanall other fruits of temperate climates combined—seventy-nine books onthe grape, seventy on all other fruits.
This statement of partiality does not lead to an apology for a newbook on the grape. There is urgent need for a new book. But three ofthe seventy-nine treatises on this fruit are contemporary, and all butone, a handbook on training, are records from vanished minds. Methodschange so rapidly and varieties multiply so fast, that to keep pacethere must be new books on fruits every few years. Besides, the typesof grapes are so diverse, and different soils, climates, andtreatments produce such widely dissimilar results, that many books arerequired to do justice to this fruit—the vineyard should be seenthrough many eyes.
Commercial grape-growing is now a great industry in America, anddeserves a treatise or its own. But there are also many demands forinformation on grape-growing by those who grow fruits for pleasure,especially by those who are escaping from...