340 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



As one of the first experimenters stated, "a sickness takes hold of the 

 vines and they die." The agent causing the sickness is the phylloxera, 

 a tiny plant louse, undiscovered until the last half of the nineteenth 

 century, which works on the leaves and roots of the European grapes, 

 but which does comparatively little harm to American species. Un- 

 doubtedly, the resistance of native grapes to the phylloxera is due to 

 natural selection in the contest that has been going on for untold ages 

 between host and parasite. Three other pests, black-rot, downy mildew 

 and powdery mildew, are destructive to European grapes in America. 

 The climate, too, in eastern North America alternates between hot and 

 cold, wet and dry, and the Old World grapes grow well only in equable 

 temperatures and conditions of humidity. The leaves of the Old World 

 grape are thin and soft and the roots fleshy ; the leaves of the American 

 species are thick and leathery and the roots hard and fibrous. These 

 differences in the structure of the species of Vitis explain their adapta- 

 tions to the two climates. 



That American viticulture must depend upon the native species for 

 its varieties began to be recognized at the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century, when several large companies engaged in growing foreign 

 grapes failed, and a meritorious native grape made its appearance. The 

 vine of promise was a variety known as the Alexander. Thomas Jeffer- 

 son, ever alert for the agricultural welfare of the nation, writing in 

 1809 to John Adlum, one of the first experimenters with an American 

 species, voiced the sentiment of grape experimenters, in speaking of 

 the Alexander: 



I think it will be well to push the culture of this grape without losing time 

 and efforts in the search of foreign vines, which it will take centuries to adapt 

 to our soil and climate. 



The Alexander is an offshoot of the common fox grape, Vitis Idbrusca, 

 found in the woods on the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia and 

 occasionally in the Mississippi Valley. The history of the variety dates 

 back to just before the Revolutionary War, when, according to William 

 Bartram, the Quaker botanist, it was found growing in the vicinity of 

 Philadelphia, by John Alexander, gardener to Governor Penn of Penn- 

 sylvania. Curiously enough, it came into general cultivation through 

 the deception of a nurseryman. Peter Legaux, mentioned before, in 

 1801 sold the Kentucky Vineyard Society fifteen hundred grape cut- 

 tings, which he said had been taken from an European grape, introduced 

 from the Cape of Good Hope, therefore, called the " Cape " grape. 

 Legaux's grape turned out to be the old Alexander. In the new home 

 the spurious " Cape " grew wonderfully well and as the knowledge of 

 its fruit fulness in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana spread, demand for it 

 increased and with remarkable rapidity, considering the time, it came 

 into general cultivation in the parts of the United States then settled. 



Of the several species of American grapes now under cultivation, 



