232 Mississippi Valley Horticultural Society. 



Kerr Porter, the celebrated English traveler, describes as the " Kishmish 

 and Samarcand grapes," had bunches weighing ten to twelve pounds, with 

 berries too large for a small mouth ; nor is this peculiar and very difterent 

 class of grapes a thing of the past; it still exists and is cultivated in Persia 

 and Georgia (Transcanasia). The Parsee and some other Asiatic sects are 

 not guided in this respect by the Koran : and in some provinces, as in Kach- 

 eth, viniculture is the principal agricultural pursuit. The travelers, Dan- 

 dini and Schulz, have seen vines on the Lebanon which are said to continue 

 in bloom from March to July and to bear ripe grapes from June to Decem- 

 ber, whose berries are as large as small plums, in clusters weighing from ten 

 to twelve pounds. 



And who of us does not know the legend of the first discovery of America 

 by the Northmen (Wheaton: History of the Northmen); that Leif, the son 

 of Erick (Erikson), who landed in the year 1002 in Narragansett Bay, named it 

 " Vinland," because his German man, '"Tycker," had there found many wild 

 grapes. So, also, Columbus, when he discovered Hispania (now Cuba), sent 

 large grapes (probably of the Scuppernong class) to Queen Isabella of Spain, 

 and another island was even called Martha's Vineyard. The Pilgrim Fathers 

 saw vines in abundance when they landed at Plymouth. "Here are grapes, 

 white and red, and very sweet and strong, also," wrote Governor Edward 

 Winslow, in 1621. 



Botanists are now studying and classifying the different kinds of original 

 wild vines, and from their seed and intercrossings are produced beautiful, ex- 

 quisite new grapes, best adapted to the respective home of each species. I 

 do not wish to be understood as denying that grape-vines can also be success- 

 fully ti'ansplanted to localities where their parent species can not be found ; 

 the successful introduction of the European grapes in California proves that 

 they can be successfully transplanted; but I do believe that such is the ex- 

 ception, and that, as a rule, varieties of a native species are surer of enduring 

 success. Most of you know that all attempts to transplant and cultivate the 

 grapes of Europe, the V. Vinifera, to the Atlantic coast and to the Mississippi 

 Valley, proved failures; even when grafted on American phylloxera- resist- 

 ing roots, they mostly failed, as far as tried, either from climatic causes, or 

 from the attacks of cryptogamic diseases, mildew (Peronoi^pora) and rot. Nor 

 is the process of grafting European vines on American roots, now practiced 

 on a very large scale in France, as easy or safe an operation in our variable 

 climate as it is there. Hybrids, produced by crossing the foreign on our 

 native grape, though at first deemed to be highly promising, have also gen- 

 erally given unsatisfactory results in this country. Though superior in qual- 

 ity and beauty to our purely native grapes, they lack in hardiness, vigor and 

 productiveness. It is a remarkable fact that some of these hybrids are very 

 successful in Europe; more especially the Triumph, a cross between Con- 

 cord and Chasselas Mosquee, by Mr. Campbell ; the Othello, a cross between 

 V. Riparia and Black Hamburg, by Mr. Arnold, and the Black Eagle and Black 

 Defiance, crosses between Concord and Black St. Peter, by Mr. Underbill. 



