48 



TRANSACTIONS OF THE ILLINOIS 



all the pollen from the flowers before fertilization took place. Vines 

 growing in the forest are not liable to this accident, being surroinided by 

 trees to break the force of the air currents, and by other vines to supply 

 the missing pollen. All the trees of the forest are not alike congenial 

 to the vine as a support. Some it utterly refuses to accept as such. 

 Others absorb so much nutrition from the soil and air as to starve 

 the vine. Others root too near the surface, or on the same plane in which 

 the vine roots feed. Others cast too great a shade. All trees, I believe, 

 of slow growth and deep feeding roots, are adapted to arboreal viticulture. 

 I have observed splendid results on the wild gooseberry bush of our 

 woods. The white oak, mulberry, and the Morello cheny family appear 

 to be very^ congenial to the vine. But do not plant the black walnut for 

 this purpose, as one did who wished to tiy the experiment, and base your 

 conclusions on the result. This tree appears to be veiy pernicions to the 

 vine. A vine growing on a tree or bush will need pruning as well as 

 those grown in other forms; this can be readily done by means of a step- 

 ladder, leaving the portions cut hanging on the tree ; the tree may also be 

 pruned in to any extent desirable. In vineyard culture the trees should 

 be planted midway between the vines. For single specimens the vine 

 should be planted ten to fifteen feet from the tree and trained towards it. 

 This is^ no new system. Millions of vines are so grown in Italy and 

 Southern France, and have been for centuries, with the best of success. 

 If so well adapted to the old Vitis vmifera, that has had thousands of 

 years of stake and trellis education, how much better should it be adapted 

 to our more feral native species. 



Grozving the vine from Seed. — This is so easily done, and vines can 

 be brought into fruit so quickly, that every one at all interested in viti- 

 culture should each year plant seeds of the vine. For only by constant 

 reproductions from seed can our native species be educated or domestic- 

 ated up to a point that w\\\ fit them for our artificial modes of vineyard 

 culture, and the exposures inherent thereto. The Catawba may be 

 named as an instance controverting this doctrine, it having been taken 

 from the woods, but who can say but that this gi^ape is the oflspring 

 from thousands of generations of cultivated vines, and is to-day the high- 

 est t\'pe of vine domestication to be found amongst our native species. 

 Looking down the vast vista of time passed through by this our oldest 

 continent mig-ht we not find a race of viticulturists learned in their art.^ 

 Grape seeds may be treated the same as apple seed, and the seedlings grown 

 with less care. Take them up the first fall and bury the roots out of 

 reach of frost; plant them the next spring where you wish to fruit them, 

 and they will show their character in from two to five years. They need 

 have but little room for this test-fruiting. Rows four feet apart, and 

 the seedlings a foot apart in the row will be ample. A majority of the 

 seedlings raised by me have only male (staminate or barren) flowers, and 

 these are, as a rule, the most handsome, hardy, and strongest growers. Is 

 not here another hint for a lesson yet to be learned.^ All polygamous 

 flowering plants, like the grape, have many that are individually pistillate, 

 or partly so, and more or less barren from this cause. Po we not ijeed 



