338 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



THE DOMESTICATION OF AMERICAN GEAPES 



By Peofessoe U. P. HEDRICK 



AGEICULTUBAL EXPERIMENT STATION, GENEVA, N. Y. 



THERE are about forty species of grapes in the world, more than 

 half of which are found in North America. Few other plants on 

 this continent grow wild under such varied conditions and over such 

 extended areas. Thus, wild grapes are found in the warmer parts of 

 New Brunswick; on the shores of the Great Lakes; everywhere in the 

 rich woodlands and thickets of the North and Middle Atlantic States; 

 on the limestone soils in the mountainous parts of Kentucky, Tennessee 

 and the Virginias; and they thrive in the sandy woods, sea plains and 

 reef-keys of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, where a single vine of 

 the Scuppernong often clambers over trees and shrubs for a hundred 

 feet or more. While not so common west of the Mississippi, yet some 

 kind of wild grape is found from North Dakota to Texas ; grapes grow 

 on the mountains and in the canyons of all the Rocky Mountain States ; 

 and several species thrive on the Mexican borders and in the far south- 

 west, where they furnished the early Spanish padres with grapes for 

 wine and suggested the planting of the first vineyards in America. 



While it is possible that all of the native grapes have descended 

 from an original species, the types are now as diverse as the regions 

 they inhabit. The wild grapes of the forests have long slender trunks 

 and branches whereby their leaves are better exposed to the sunlight. 

 Two shrubby species do not attain a greater height than four or five 

 feet; these grow in sandy soils, or among the rocks well exposed to sun 

 and air. Another runs on the ground and bears foliage almost ever- 

 green. The stem of one species attains a diameter of nearly a foot, 

 bearing its foliage in a great canopy; from this giant form the species 

 vary to sorts with slender, graceful, almost delicate, climbing vines. 

 Wild grapes are quite as varied in climatic adaptations as in structure 

 of vine, and grow luxuriantly and bear fruit in almost every condition 

 of heat or cold, wet or dry, capable of supporting fruit-culture in 

 America. So many of the kinds have horticultural possibilities that it 

 seems certain that some of them can be domesticated in all of the agri- 

 cultural regions of the country, their natural plasticity indicating, even 

 if it were not known from experience, that all can be domesticated. 



Leif the Lucky, the first European to visit America, if the Icelandic 

 records be true, christened the new land Wineland after its grapes. 

 Captain John Hawkins, who visited the Spanish settlements in Florida 

 in 1565, mentions the wild grapes among the resources of the New 

 World, with f le statement that the Spaniards " had made twenty hogs- 



