Appendix. 209 



THE GRAPE IN OREGON. 



By Pkof. E. R. Lake, Oregon Agricultural College, Corvallis, Or. 



PART I. 



WESTERN OREGON. 

 "In the desert it ranks next the pine." — Loudon. 



The grape has been grown as a fruit for home use in this region for a 

 period of over fifty years. The first vine planted so far as known was an 

 Isabella, in 1848.* Yet, while the grape has been grown here over half a 

 century, it is only within the past sixteen years that it has been con- 

 sidered as a commercial crop. Within this later period several small 

 vineyards of the American type of grape have been planted, and the own- 

 ers are finding them profitable investments. It is not the purpose of 

 the writer, however, to urge the growing of the grape as a commercial 

 crop at this time, but rather to endeavor to encourage the planting of it 

 for home consumption. That the grape is one of the most healthful of the 

 cultivated fruits, is attested by the fact that the consumption «of this 

 fruit has been, from biblical times to the present, endorsed and pre- 

 scribed as a dietary food by eminent physicians; the vine and its fruit 

 have also been the recipient of zealous attention by man, and at his 

 hands have been wonderfully developed and meliorated. While the world 

 at large is most familiar with the history of the European grape (Vitis 

 vinifera) the history of the development of the American grape (Vitis 

 labrusca, and other species), which is at present receiving much atten- 

 tion by specialists, is even more interesting to the American horticulturist 

 than that of its old world congener, for the reason that, except for parts 

 of California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and as a special type 

 for indoor culture, the European variety is not suitable to American cli- 

 matic conditions. 



That the grape is highly esteemed by man is particularly evidenced by 

 the great number of varieties that have been brought out by selection 

 and hybridization. In 1768 Miller described eighteen varieties; in 1875, 

 Hogg in his "Fruit Manual" listed one hundred and forty-three; in 1881, 

 a Frenchman, M. Andre, catalogued four hundred and seventeen. These 

 are lists of foreign authors.* In our own country there have been listed 

 upwards of fifteen hundredt varieties of our native species, and the list is 

 steadily increasing year by year. And yet with all this array of named 

 and fully described varieties it has been found that only a few are really 

 worthy of being planted in Western Oregon for either home or market 



* Of the Henderson Lewelling collection brought acro-ss the plains in 1847. 



* Barron, 1900. 



t W. K. Newell, Oregon Report, 1899. 



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