It may be interesting to your readers how - after the excessive wet summer of 1865. and the enormous crops which some varieties produced, and which occasioned an imperfect ripening of their wood - the different varieties behaved this summer.

Catawba - As this is the oldest, I will give it the first notice. Sorry to say, it did not improve with age. Most of our Catawba vineyards are dead, or so badly damaged that they will hardly recover; yet, strange to say, a few vineyards produced an exceedingly fine crop, same aver-aging as high as 500 to 600 gallons per acre. This shows again that location and soil have a great deal to do with the success of certain varieties.

Norton's Virginia - A fair crop generally, although some vineyards have suffered very much by excessive bearing last year. Most of the vines look well again this fall; have medium sized, well ripened wood, and promise a fine crop next year. Average yield this year, about 300 gallons per acre. This is here still the great staple variety for red wine. While I am on this subject, I will just refer to several grape articles, where the comparative merits of Norton's and Ives' Seedlings have been discussed, especially to "Grape Memoranda," in the November number of the Horticulturist, where M. H. L. says, "that Mr. McCul -lough, of Cincinnati, writes to him." Wo think the Norton's Virginia grape the best, but very unproductive; the lves' next best, and very productive, and hence the most profitable in cultivation. Mr. McCullough also stated, at the Grape-Growers' Meeting, at Cleveland, "that it was not true that Norton's Virginia averaged 400 gallons to the acre in Missouri, although it was so stated by respectable authority." Now, I can tell Mr. McCullough that Norton's Virginia averages more here than 400 gallons, as I can prove to him by years of trial and the testimony of all our winegrowers, who have cultivated that grape for wine alone, and not also taken a crop of layers from the vines at the same time, as has been but too frequently done. 1200 bearing vines, planted 6 - 6, consequently about an acre, produced 1,300 gallons of pure juice for me last year; and although this is the largest yield on record, we can average 500 to 600 gallons per acre with that variety easy enough.

If he wishes proof of this, it shall bo forthcoming. If it does not do so for him, or for the grape-growers around Cincinnati, it only shows that they have not the right soil for it, or do not give it fair treatment; and the latter is not so very improbable, when we take into consideration that it took those learned gentlemen fourteen to fifteen years of fruiting of the Ives to make the grand discovery that well-ripened grapes of it made better wine than they did when just colored - a fact which every child knows here. Just consider, gentle readers of the Horticulturist, the Ives was fruited twenty-six years ago, in a grape-growing region, and only a few years ago it began to dawn upon their minds that it was really valuable! Nicholas Longworth, their great oracle, discarded Norton's Virginia, and said it would not make a wine fit to drink, in 1850; and now his fellow-townsmen decide that it makes the best wine, but is rather unproductive, since they have received it from us again. Comment is unnecessary. These single facts speak volumes for the discernment of our Cincinnati brethren.

Were I uncharitable, I might attribute some of Mr. McCullough's preference to the fact, that the Norton is one of the hardest vines to propagate, the Ives one of the easiest; and that Mr. McCullough once almost monopolized the stock of the latter. But I will do no such thing. I will only advise him to "mind his own business," and not dispute facts which have occurred here, and about which he knows nothing whatever. I know but little of the Ives, am willing to believe all that our friends in Cincinnati say it does for them, but am satisfied (and they themselves concede it) that its wine will not, as a heavy red wine for medical purposes, rival the Norton's, because the stuff for it is not in the grape. It has not the astringcncy or the heavy body of the Norton wine, and I know of only two other grapes, the Cynthiana and Arkansas, which possess it in the same degree. Only in them need the Norton fear a rival', as the flavor of the Cynthiana is more refined and delicate than the Norton, with a still greater body, and otherwise the same qualities. It may, and I rather think it will, some day supplant the Norton, but it is yet very scarce, and very hard to propagate.

The Ives will, no doubt, make a very pleasant and excellent wine, but can not take the place of the Norton, according to all I can see; and 500 gallons per acre, which the Norton will readily give us here, at four dollars per gallon, will make it a very paying grape for us Missourians to plant. If the Ives suits the Ohio soil better, let them plant it; but let them not run the Norton down as unproductive in locations of which they do not know anything.

Concord

This continues to grow in favor, has produced a good crop again, and is a very safe grape to plant for everybody, as it will stand more abuse, and greater diversity of treatment and soil, than almost any other. Its wine suits most palates, and sells very readily at $2.50 per gallon. It will be emphatically the "poor man's drink," as it will pay to raise and make at fifty cents per gallon. Average yield, about 1,000 gallons per acre this year.

Herhemont

This noble grape has made a fair crop again, wherever covered last winter, as it ought to be, and its wine is "hard to beat." As a delicate white wine, it will equal the finest hock wines, and I could readily have sold my last year's crop at five dollars per gallon. It has been free from rot and mildew this summer, ripened its fruit splendidly, also its wood, and promises a heavy crop next year.

Delaware

Lost its leaves again, and consequently the yield was slight. Too delicate for us here, though it makes an excellent wine; and wherever it flourishes, it should be planted by all means.