150 ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW- YORK 



produce the grape in as high health, and much less, in as great 

 excellence, as in Spain and California. 



b. Yet from some results already reached in the culture of 

 seedling grapes, and judging analogically from the improve- 

 ment of other species of plants, we have a right, confidently to 

 hope, that varieties of grapes may yet be attained whose consti- 

 tutional hardiness, early maturity, and other qualities, whether 



for the table or for wine, will make them valuable for profitable 

 cultivation in the central and southern states of the Union, as 

 well as capable of moderate culture over most of its northern 

 portions. 



c. Such a variety being actually attained, let it be cultivated 

 as far as possible, in accordance with the suggestions under the 

 head of the immediate remedy suggested above. 



Note 1. — grape disease in Europe. 



Nothing has been said above of the pervasion of central and 

 southern Europe by this disease. Unfortunately, while we have 

 had descriptions of the visible appearances of the disease on the 

 leaf and fruit, there has been no clear statement of its climatic 

 relations. From the visible marks of the disease, however, 

 joined with the unchangeable laws of vegetable pathology, which 

 are alike in all lands, I have no doubt of the identity of the 

 disease there and here. The climatic obstacles there are less 

 than here, while they act under the disadvantage of cultivating 

 varieties of less vigor than our native sorts. 



Note 2. — Above I have made no broad discrimination between 

 the liabilities of foreign and native sorts to disease; and for this 

 reason, it seems to me that, though our native sorts are very 

 decidedly stronger than the foreign, the intrinsic difiiculties of 

 the subject are with grape culture as suchj in an incongenial cli- 

 mate, rather than with any variety or class of grapes. The 

 origination of a sort as hardy as the '^ Isabella," as early as the 

 " Early Black July," will not insure us uniformly successful 

 grape culture on the line of 43® north. 



' 2 — diseases of the sugar cane. 



The J^atural History of the Sugar Cane. — The sugar cane 

 belongs to the family of grasses, one which includes nearly one- 



