This question fitly leads, for even a most cursory view of it will lay open to our sight the great importance of the subject commercially since the advent of the new varieties of grapes, which are working a revolution, not the least in importance of those which characterize our age.

If 1 rightly apprehend the import of the question, a comparison is intended between the culture of foreign varieties under glass for table use, and the cultivation of our native kinds In the open air.

Without violence, the subject may be so enlarged as to make comparison of the prospective value of the investment for the production of foreign grapes for the table, and of the native grapes for the table and for wine. But, restricted to the cultivation of grapes for the table, the parallel may be more easily drawn, and the main points of the case more clearly set forth to our immediate observation. We shall be able to place the conditions and circumstances of both by the side of each other for strict comparison, so that if we treat the subject fairly, we need not fear to fail of arriving at a just conclusion.

To avoid unnecessary complication, we shall consider the foreign grapes to be grown without artificial heat.

If this question had been under consideration ten years ago, the case would have presented a widely different aspect from the present Our best natives then had too little resemblance to the foreign kinds to permit them to be brought into general comparison, but now we have kinds which, if they blush at all, can only blush with pride at the high rank which they are able to hold by the side of the best of any country, and particularly for wine. For it was for this purpose that we had almost banished the hope of getting any thing of eminent excellence, and so long had we earnestly looked in vain, that we had begun to call that wine whioh does not deserve the name.

But to our immediate subject We can not bring the subject before our sight clearly without the use of some figures, but will avoid their use as far as can be done safely. And we may remark at the beginning, that there is so much that is attractive and deeply interesting pertaining to the vinery, that it is not a little difficult to make a rigid calculation of the cost that shall enable us to know its economical value.

To those who have the taste and ability to enjoy the vinery as a luxury for cultivation end diversion, as well as for its magnificent productions, it has a real value not to be estimated in dollars and dimes, and consequently can not be placed to account of its commercial value, which we are now seeking to learn.

A house one hundred feet long and twenty-one feet wide will afford accommodation for one hundred and twenty vines. These, under the best of care, may be expected to produce about fifteen pounds each. Much more than this weight is often obtained in a particular season, but not in a succession of seasons.

An average of the actual product will fall below this, but the best management may fiairly hope for this amount I have named twice as many vines as are generally given to a house of this size, for without this number and by the ordinary method of training, I do not believe more than two-thirds of the crop named can be obtained during a succession of ten yearn.

This structure alone, if built as cheaply as possible, consistent with full efficiency and due regard to durability, may be made for six hundred dollars, apparatus for watering not included.

[The doctor's figures are too low here. A substantial, durable house, one hundred by twenty-one feet, can not be built for this sum. A very cheap house is always in the end a very dear one, the cost of keeping it in repair being out of all proportion to its estimated value. - Ed].

To occupy this ground fully with Delaware vines to the best advantage in exact system they should be planted in four rows, which would contain in all one hundred and forty-eight vines, as follows: The first to stand one foot in advance of the fence, containing fifty vines two feet apart, trained in full Thomery plan; the second, eight feet from the first, containing forty vines two and a half feet apart, in three-fourths Thomery plan; the third, six feet from the last, containing twenty-five vines, in half Thomery plan; and the fourth four feet from the third, containing thirty-three vines, according to the most approved vineyard plan, containing thirty-three vines. The height of the trellises will be about nine feet for the first, seven for the second, five for the third, and three for the shoots upon the arms of the fourth.

The first may be expected to produce seven hundred pounds, or fourteen pounds per vine; the second five hundred pounds, or twelve and a half pounds to the vine; the third four hundred pounds, making sixteen pounds to the vine; and the fourth two hundred pounds, being about six pounds to the vine, making eighteen hundred pounds in all, which is truly a large amount, but still a very low estimate, and considerably within a safe calculation.

We have supposed the cost of border to be the same in each case, and so we shall continue it in our calculation; but, in fact, our border for the natives would cost twenty-five per cent. less than the border for the vinery. For the natives the fence and trellis would be required for training and protection, which the vinery would furnish in itself. This would be less expensive than the watering apparatus, including cistern and tanks; but to avoid, as far as possible, estimates in figures, which are difficult to keep in mind, we will balance each with the other.

In our calculation injustice has probably been done to the natives in the estimate of the crop. As the result of ten years' careful observation, I must avow the belief that the open border, with the proper attention, will produce, for ten consecutive years, as great a weight of perfect fruit as the vinery. But we will proceed as we have begun, in the proportion of one third less; and we will also concede the same proportion in the value of the fruit.

For the foreign grapes, 1,800 pounds at 35 cents per pound, the sum would be $6S0; or, in round numbers, $600. For 1,200 pounds of the natives, at 20 cents per pound, the amount would be $240. This gross sum, compared with the $600 from the vinery, is unquestionably small. But we shall soon see that the cost is also small, and that not merely the relative profit, but the absolute profit from the border, is as great as that from the vinery.

At the end of the third year the cost of the vinery will not be over-estimated at $1,000; even $1,200 may probably be too little. As a large part of this is perishable and in need of frequent expensive appairs, such as painting, etc., less than 20 per cent will not equal the value of the same at lawful interest This will amount to $200, and the cost for attendance can not be much less. We shall not have more than $200 net alter all expenditures are deducted.

On the other hand, our border, at the same time, will not stand us in more than $350, and the cost for attendance will not exceed $25; so that for the vine in the open air the annual expenditure, including interest, will scarcely exceed fifty dollars; thus leaving nearly, or quite, $200 net profit for our twentieth part of an acre under high culture.

As we hove, throughout the comparison, been very liberal to the vinery and rigorous with the border, we will still do so, and allow $65 for expenditure, which still leaves all that we dare take as net earnings of the border.

It must be remarked in passing, that no one who has compared the fruit of the Delaware with other kinds, native or foreign, and enjoyed its excellence, will be able to conceive of its bringing less in market than the best Black Hamburghs. Objection is made to its size, but not by those who are conversant with the elegance of its translucent berries and fine, compact bunches, whose beauty needs not the unseemly marring to which the Hamburghs must be subjected before presentation to be enjoyed. The same objection has been made to the Seckel Pear, and yet its surpassing merit still commands the highest price.

The comparison between the cultivation of grapes under glass and In open air, has been made upon the same extent of ground for a three-fold purpose, which will soon appear in the examination of the other questions.

Let us now see what the cost of the vinery will do invested in one acre of vineyard It is just the amount that, under favorable circumstances, will bring to productiveness at the end of the third year one acre of Delaware vineyard, purchase of vines and all expenditure, except cost of ground, included.

If good vines have been chosen, and every operation has been well performed, at the end of the third season the vines will be carrying an average of four pounds each of perfect bunches of grapes, or four tuns to the acre. This is about one-third the quantity that Delaware vines are generally suffered to bear at this age, and is much below what may be borne with safety.

We need go no farther with this calculation. Beheld at a distance, it makes the profit of the vinery in the foreground appear quite diminutive, when we consider that; the attendance of the vineyard of one acre will cost less than that of the vinery of one hundred feet, and that the crops are produced with a certainty to which the vinery can put forth no claim.

If the price of the grapes is estimated at a low value for wine - ten cents per pound - the amount will be eight hundred dollars. But until the lovers of good fruit are supplied who have no vines of their own, good Delaware grapes will not be sold at a price that will net less than twenty cents per pound, nor within a few years at a price so low as that. This will give sixteen hundred dollars, less expenses, which will all be less than two hundred dollars.

I think we may safely arrive at the conclusion, that, with such varieties as we now have, the cultivation of the native hardy grapes offers much better profits than the cold vinery. And it may further be announced, without fear of contradiction by any one who has taken care to be well informed on the subject, that grape culture is not only inaugurated in this country, but is far advanced in the sure way of progress that shall make it here, has it has ever been in all the vine growing countries, "The grand culture." All branches of culture are deeply interesting to the man of contemplation and feeling, but in different degrees; and the vine not only includes the interest of all except that of the Florist, but excells them all in its reflex action in cultivating the mind, the sentiments, and the heart.

The vine alone could be fitly chosen to illustrate the vital union of Deity with humanity and the husbandman of the vine justly feels the high recognition of the excellence of his calling by the most tender comparison ever expressed in language being drawn from his own relation to the vine.