2 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



species is cultivated for fruit, but this, of all grapes, is of 

 greatest economic importance and, therefore, deserves first 

 consideration. 



The European Grape 



The European grape, Vitis vinifera (Fig. 1), is the grape of 

 ancient and modern agriculture. It is the vine which Noah 

 planted after the Deluge ; the vine of Israel and of the Promised 

 Land ; the vine of the parables in the New Testament. It is the 

 grape and the vine of the myths, fables, poetry and prose of all 

 peoples. It is the grape from which the wines of the world are 

 made. From it come the raisins of the world. It is the chief 

 agricultural crop of southern Europe and northern Africa and 

 of vast regions in other parts of the world, having followed 

 civilized man from place to place in all temperate climates. 

 The European grape has so im]:)ressed itself on the human mind 

 that when one thinks or speaks of the grape, or of the vine, it is 

 this Old World species, the vine of antiquity, that presents itself. 



The written records of the cultivation of the European grape 

 go back five or six thousand years. The ancient Egyptians, 

 Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans grew the vine and made wine 

 from its fruit. Grape seeds have been found in the remains of 

 European peoples of prehistoric times, showing that primitive 

 men enlivened their scanty fare with wild grapes. Cultivation 

 of the grape in the Old World probably began in the region about 

 the Caspian Sea where the vine has always run wild. We have 

 proof of the great antiquity of the grape in Egypt, for its seeds 

 are found entombed with the oldest mummies. Probably the 

 Phoenicians, the earliest navigators on the ^lediterranean, 

 carried the grape from Egypt and Syria to Greece, Rome and 

 other countries bordering on this sea. The domestication of 

 the grape was far advanced in Christ's time, for Pliny, writing 

 then, describes ninety-one kinds of grapes and fifty kinds of 

 wine. 



