Its Extent, Progress And Prospect By M. B. Rateham

A Horticultural friend in Pennsylvania, who attended some of the pleasant meetings and excursions of our Lake Shore Grape Growers Association, five or six years ago, writes to me for information respecting the present extent and prospects of grape culture in Ohio, and says the idea has become somewhat prevalent that the business is found to be, in the main, a failure, and many of the Catawba vineyards are abandoned.

To answer such inquiries and remove erroneous impressions, I offer the following statistics and observations, which I think will show that we have in Ohio more acres of vineyards than are in any other State of the Union; and while it is true that grape culture, here as elsewhere, has not been as uniformly successful, nor as highly profitable as was formerly anticipated, it is so far from being a failure that the planting of new vineyards is annually going on, so that the aggregate number of acres is at this time greater than ever before.

The following table of statistics is compiled from the returns of the township assessors, published annually by the Secretary of Stale. It is not claimed that the figures are absolutely correct, but they are believed to be not far from the truth, and where errors occur they are most commonly in the omission to report the full amounts.

The table shows the number of acres of vineyards planted, the total number of acres in the State, the pounds of grapes harvested, and gallons of wine pressed, each year, for the four years preceding the past one:

In this table the aggregate number of acres in 1872 is partly estimated, as there is an obvious error in the published returns from Ottawa county, representing the number quite too great, and swelling the aggregate to over 15,000 acres for the State; but counting the amount of planting and the increase of previous years, it is evident that the aggregate is not far from 12,000 acres. This, of course, does not include the thousands of small patches of grapes for home use, not counted as vineyards.

In regard to the amount of grapes harvested, the statistics are not of much value, for it is found that some of the assessors have understood this to include only the grapes sold or shipped to the markets, and not those pressed for wine, while others properly included both. It should also be mentioned here, that, in favorable seasons, hundreds of tons of Catawba grapes are shipped from our lake shore region, to other States, for wine making.

About one-third of the whole amount of vineyards, or 4,000 acres, are located in the counties of Ottawa and Erie (including the islands), near the west end of Lake Erie, and about 2,000 acres more in the adjoining counties of Lorain and Cuyahoga, on the lake shore, making one-half of the aggregate for the State; the balance, 6,000 acres, is pretty widely scattered, the hilly lands on the Ohio river, and in the coal regions, having a fair share. It is noticeable, too, that while there has been very little planting, and no increase at all, of late years, in the aggregate of the lake shore region, nearly all the planting and increase has been in the interior counties of the State, where small vineyards, mostly of the Concord variety, are found profitable for supplying fruit to the local markets.

Of the vineyards on the lake shore and islands, full seven-eights are Catawba, and I should say that nine-tenths of the wine manufactured is of this variety - though there is a considerable amount of Ives and Concord wine made at Cincinnati and other towns in southern Ohio, and some at Cleveland, Sandusky and Toledo; also, small amounts of Delaware and Norton.

The business of wine making is now carried on with much more of capital and skill than formerly, and, consequently, the product is of better quality and commands readier sale at better prices. This improvement in the domestic wine trade causes an increased demand for good grapes, independent of the fruit markets, and prevents all feeling of discouragement in the minds of those who own vineyards in favorable localities. At the prices paid by wine makers for the fruit, four to five cents per pound, the crop is found to pay better than the average of any other for which the lands are adapted. For table use, also - where the facilities for transportation are good, by steamboat or freight cars - the grape crop has paid quite well, even at the low average prices of the past three or four years.

Some vineyards have entirely failed, as was to be expected, from the want of intelligence or care in the choice of land or its preparation and planting, or in the selection of the varieties of grapes and the management of the vines. It will be seen, by the statistics, that the increase of the aggregate is only about one-half as many acres as are planted each year - the balance being offset by vineyards destroyed or abandoned.

Much injury has been sustained, especially by the Catawba and Delaware vineyards, from allowing the vines to overbear; this was particularly the case in the fruitful seasons of 1870 and 71, when many vineyards were allowed to bear as much as five or six tons of fruit to the acre. This so weakened the vines as to induce disease of the foliage, and thus they were unfitted to endure the severe cold of the winter of 1872-73, which caused destruction of the wood in many vineyards, and the buds in the majority, so that the crop of the past season was not over about one-fourth of the usual average for the entire State, or one-third to a half in the most favored localities.