GRAPES. 69 



being even less so than the Delaware, while ils delicate foliage seems unable to 

 resist the vicissitudes of our climate in unfuvorat)le seasons. It is usually a 

 poor setter of fruit, so that the bunches are usually very scattering, and withal 

 seldom perfect. Still, its eminent quality will, in the absence of anything more 

 reliable, render it indispensable to the amateur. 



THE AGAWAM GKAPE. 



Mr. Edward S. Rogers of Salem has the merit of having taken an entirely 

 new departure respecting the proper principles underlying the theory of grape 

 hybridization, a departure which, whatever may be thought of its correctness, 

 has certainly led him to the creation of an aggregation of most wonderful 

 results. 



Mr. Rogers selected as the female parent through which to work out the 

 problem to which he devoted himself, what is known as the Mammoth Globe 

 grape, one of the largest of the wild fox grapes of New England ; the blossoms 

 of this were fertilized with pollen of the Chasselas and Black Hamburgh. 

 From the fruit of those hybridizations he produced a crop of seedlings gener- 

 ally of great vigor and hardiness, producing some black, and others red or 

 white fruit, generally of large size, and in fine bunches, many of them ripen- 

 ing quite early. Although these seedlings, in common with nearly all new 

 varieties of fruits, were at first somewhat overpraised, and hence have not 

 always realized the expectations of planters, it is still a matter of surprise that 

 80 large a number of seedlings should have been produced, of so generally even 

 a quality, and withal, of so high a degree of excellence, from a parent of such 

 utterly worthless quality, so far as fruit is concerned. 



Among these hybrids (the propriety of this designation being in question), 

 is the subject of this notice; it having been extensively disseminated by Mr. 

 Rogers and dealers generally, before naming as Rogers' No. 15. 



When these varieties fruited they were shown on the tables of the Massa- 

 chusetts Horticultural Society, and they seem to have been first noticed 

 through the press in the report of the fruit committee of that Society for the 

 year 1857. They were also discussed, and No. 15 especially commended at the 

 meeting of the American Pomological Society held at Philadelphia, in 1860, 

 and again at its meeting at Boston in 1863. 



After these varieties had been for several years in the hands of planters, Mr. 

 Rogers was induced to assign names to the more deserving varieties ; the one 

 nnder consideration, sent out as No. 15, received the name Agawam, as before 

 stated, about the year 1867 or 1868. 



This variety, in common with many of this lot of seedlings, seems to cling 

 with tenacity to one of the characteristic peculiarities of its wild parent. As 

 the vine acquires age it sets its bunches very profusely, and unless checked by 

 careful summer pruning or thinning, the bunches become very small and 

 imperfect. This objection, together with a lack of superior quality in the fruit 

 seem to me to clearly warrant the remark at one time made by Mr. Charles 

 Downing, that all the Rogers grapes would hare to be laid aside, ag being 

 hardly up to the demands of the age, so far as quality is concerned. Still this 

 grape is possessed of a very, firm, tough skin, and also matures at so opportune 

 a season as to specially adapt it to use as a keeping grape, and it is for such 

 purpose that it is assigned a place on the Society's list. It will ripen in this 

 climate a few days later than the Concord. 



The following are the additional grapes described by Mr. Lyon: 



