The Grape-Vine 343 



the circumstances which accompanied this important event. We have 

 likewise ascertained that the art of making grape-wine was not learned 

 by the Chinese before a.d. 640. There are in China several species of 

 wild vine which bear no relation to the imported cultivated species. 

 Were we left without the records of the Chinese, a botanist of the 

 type of Engler would correlate the cultivated with the wild forms and 

 assure us that the Chinese are original and independent viticulturists. 

 In fact, he has stated 1 that Vitis thunbergii, a wild vine occurring in 

 Japan, Korea, and China, seems to have a share in the development of 

 Japanese varieties of vine, and that Vitis filifolia of North China seems 

 to have influenced Chinese and Japanese vines. Nothing of the kind 

 can be inferred from Chinese records, or has ever been established by 

 direct observation. The fact of the introduction of the cultivated grape 

 into China is wholly unknown to Engler. The botanical notes appended 

 by him to Hehn's history of the grape 1 have nothing whatever to do 

 with the history of the cultivated species, but refer exclusively to wild 

 forms. It is not botany, but historical research, that is able to solve the 

 problems connected with the history of our cultivated plants. 



Dr. T. Tanaka of the Bureau of Plant Industry, U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, Washington, has been good enough to contribute the 

 following notes on the history of the grape-vine in Japan: — 



"The early history of the cultivation of the grape-vine (Vitis 

 vinifera) in Japan is very obscure. Most of the early Japanese medical 

 and botanical works refer to bud flf %j (Chinese p'u-t'ao) as ebi, the 

 name occurring in the Kojiki (compiled in a.d. 712, first printed in 

 1644) as yebikadzura* which is identified by J. Matsumura 4 as Vitis 

 vinifera. It seems quite incomprehensible that the grape-vine, which 

 is now found only in cultivated form, should have occurred during the 

 mythological period as early as 660 B.C. The Honzo-wamyd ^ 3£ 

 bI %\ (compiled during the period 897-930, first printed 1796) mentions 

 d-ebi-kadzura as vine-grape, distinguishing it from ordinary ebi-kadzura, 

 but the former is no longer in common use in distinction from the latter. 

 The ebi-dzuru which should correctly be termed inu-ebi (false ebi 

 plant), as suggested by Ono Ranzan, 5 is widely applied in Japan for 

 $£ J| (Chinese yin-yii), and is usually identified as Vitis thunbergii, 



1 Erlauterungen zu den Nutzpflanzen der gemassigten Zonen, p. 30. 



• Kulturpflanzen, pp. 85-91. 



• B. H. Chamberlain, Ko-ji-ki, p. xxxiv. 



• Botanical Magazine, Tokyo, Vol. VII, 1893, p. 139. 



• HontS komoku keimO, ed. 1847, Ch. 29, p. 3. 



