4S Ainerican Horticultural Society. 



THE OUTLOOK OF AMERICAN GRAPE CULTURE. 



I!V riiOF. GEO. HUSMANN, OF CALIFORNIA. 



You have demanded from me a paper on the uubjecl of "The Outlodk 

 of American Graj)e Culture," and wiish me to consider it from a general 

 stand-point, eastern as well as western, giving short and cogent reasons for 

 what I believe. To those of your members (and I need not say that there 

 are many) who have been familiar with my exertions and labors in the 

 cause of American grape culture for the last thirty years I need not folate 

 that my faith in the ultimate succees of a calling which I entered with diffi- 

 dence, but which grew upon me until it became a hobby and a passion, has 

 been unwavering and steadfast; that even in the darkest days of the young 

 industry I adhered to it, with a love that will never die until that greatest 

 of all Vintners, who said, " I am the vine, ye are the tendrils," sees tit to call 

 me away from the task. 



But I confess that I hardly consider myself competent to speak of the 

 prospects of eastern grape culture. When I left Missouri, in 1881, I was 

 conversant, if not identified, with the progress that had been made there- 

 with new varieties of native grapes as they appeared and were tried, and 

 could speak more understandingly than I can today. Here, while still cul- 

 tivating many American varieties, I found difierent climatic conditions, 

 which evidently have an unfavorable influence on the fruit of most of the 

 American varieties, while their influence on European varieties is highly 

 favorable. Such varieties as were our mainstay in Missouri and the east, 

 as, for instance, Norton's Virginia and Cynthiana among the vEstivalis, 

 Elvira and Missouri Riessling among the Riparia, are valuable here only as 

 stocks for grafting the vinifera, and almost worthless for direct production. 

 Yet it is from the native American stock that you east of the Rocky Mount- 

 ains must obtain the elements of your grape culture and base your hopes 

 for success. You can not grow the vinifera species in open air, as they are 

 too much subject to the changes of your summers and the cold of your win- 

 ters to place any reliance on them. With such men as Munson, Ricketta, 

 Campbell, Rommel, Jaeger, and a host of others, directing their best ener- 

 gies to the production of new seedlings from .Estivalis, Rii)aria, Cinerea 

 and Rupestris, with the encouraging progress already made, the day is cer- 

 tainly not far distant when you will have varieties that will be productive 

 and good enough, both for table and wine, to till your marketvS with desira- 

 ble table grapes, and also furnish wines good enough and cheap enouj^h for 

 home consumption. I have faith in the future of the American graj)e, and 

 believe that it will not take as many decades to develop desirable varieties 

 as it has taken centuries to develop the best vinifera species. But the cli- 

 matic conditions of the eastern continent seem to be constantly changing; 

 varieties considered entirely reliable only five years ago now seem to be 

 failing, and my eastern brethren :ire better competent to judge how far they 



