264 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



bor vine was near him to mar his operations. He first tried the Con- 

 cord, but soon found it had no congeniality to other better varieties, 

 and was not very susceptible to improvement; so he took the Dela- 

 ware, a much weaker grower, but of high quality, and in his first effort 

 he produced the Early Victor, which is a strong grower, very produc- 

 tive and of very good quality. 



This showed that he had struck the key-note to success, namely : 

 that weak varieties were very easily impressed by stronger varieties, 

 but very strong and positive varieties very seldom, if ever, by very 

 weak varieties. 



From this fact and data he soon discarded those that proved un- 

 worthy, until now he has but few on his lot, except his own seedlings. 



But the most remarkable fact connected with this is that he has 

 produced so many hardy varieties with such a large per cent of high 

 quality. Out of twenty varieties or more growing on our own grounds, 

 nearly all are of high quality. 



We know the source of some of them, but how, and from what 

 his Eclipse, Paragon, Matchless, Omega, Cochee and Primate come, we 

 cannot even imagine, as he never had such grapes upon his lot, and 

 there is no other source from which they could possibly come. 



This same improvement bids fair to continue as long as the same 

 method is pursued. 



We have dwelt more particularly upon Mr. Burr's success, as his 

 method is the same as our own, and our first success was made with 

 the same variety. Our grounds are, however, much larger, the vines 

 planted much farther apart, the varieties more numerous and the type 

 of many more positive, and the results are a greater departure from 

 the original types. 



We have the pure wild astiralis, labrvsca and riparia, as well as 

 the best and most refined, the feeble grower and the most vigorous 

 and rampant, from the same variety of seeds. 



While in some other instances the type is so exact that it is with 

 difficulty that we can tell the one from the other, others do not appear 

 to be susceptible to any improvement. 



From these observations and results we believe the time is not far 

 distant when we will produce as fine and excellent grapes as the Euro- 

 pean varieties. 



We append a descriptive list of our grapes to show what has been 

 accomplished by the method herein stated. 



