AMERICAN GRAPES 



349 



so successfully that a dozen or more of his varieties are still cultivated. 

 All are characterized by great vigor and productiveness, and, though 

 they lack the qualities which make good table grapes, they are among 

 the best for wine-making. Rommel has had many followers in hybrid- 

 izing the native species, chief of whom is Mr. T. V. Munson, Denison, 

 Texas, who has literally made every combination of grapes possible, 

 grown thousands of seedlings, and produced many valuable varieties. 



The aim of hybridization in breeding plants is to combine the desir- 

 able and eliminate the undesirable characters of varieties or species in 

 a new race. A plant, however, is such a complex sum-total of charac- 

 ters that no one can pi edict with any certainty the result of mingling 

 the characters of two more or less distinct plants. Speculation thus 

 quickens the charm of hybridization. The progeny of crossed grapes 

 is always chaotic and must be passed through the sieve of selection, the 

 meshes of which have grown larger and larger with use until now out 

 of thousands of new forms a grape-breeder will retain few indeed. 



Within the last decade, hybridizing has received a great impetus 

 through the publication of Mendel's experiments. In the past hybrid- 

 ization has been a maze in which breeders lost themselves. Mendel's 

 discovery in heredity assures a regularity of averages and gives a defi- 

 niteness and constancy of action hereto wholly unknown in hybridiza- 

 tion. It now appears that many of the characters of grapes follow 



Shoot of Vitis aestivalis, the Southern Wine Grape. 



