FOREIGN AND NATIVE GRAPE. 149 



« 

 birds or the boys had probably dropped the seed. That was the 



wild grape, and undoubtedly the Labrusca. There was not then 



a vineyard in Concord. There was not a vine of the Isabella 



growing within a mile of me at the time. I had in my own 



garden vines that I carried from Boston which I could not make 



succeed. I had the Catawba, the Isabella, the Chasselas, and 



the Black Hamburg. 



Mr. Haskell, of Ipswich. A few of the theories espoused by 

 Mr. Bull arc not sustained by my experience. In the year 1851 

 I commenced planting the seeds of the wild grape, the best that 

 could be found in our vicinity — the Labrusca it is called, 

 although I think there is but one species in the country. From 

 these seeds I produced thousands — perhaps tens of thousands. 

 I had a large body of them ; and from them all there were only 

 two or three that I thought worth propagating or preserving, 

 and I have them still. They are quite good for a swanrp grape, 

 but not worth cultivating. Finding that did not succeed very 

 well, I then commenced grafting the foreign upon the native, 

 and the native upon the foreign, under glass, planting the seeds 

 of the vines that were inarched. Those seedlings did not suc- 

 ceed any better. The foreign grape matured upon the native 

 stock was not hardy at all ; the vines all perished in the winter. 

 I then instituted another experiment, by inarching upon a grow- 

 ing shoot. After a bunch had just been formed upon the 

 foreign, I inarched the native shoot over the foreign fruit. I 

 then took from the foreign vine its own foliage, compelling the 

 fruit to be matured and nourished bv the native foliage. I 

 continued that experiment year after year ; and after the vines 

 had become well united, I severed the foreign vine from its own 

 root, so that it would be the foreign seed, maturing its growth 

 and ripening its fruit on the native root and under the native 

 leaf. But that did not harden the seedlings. They all mil- 

 dewed — and that means winter destruction ; for any vine that 

 will mildew will perish in the winter. 



A year or two ago I began cross-breeding, using the pollen of 

 the foreign upon the native, and the pollen of the native upon 

 the foreign. I have hundreds of those. They have not, how- 

 ever, yet furnished any fruit. It is only four years since the 

 first was put out. But one fact is clearly established : it hardens 

 the foreign vine. I have stocks from the Moselle, the Frontignan 



