22 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



years, the industry reaching its height between 1880 and 1890, 

 when there w^ere 13,000 acres under cultivation. For some 

 years, however, grape-growing along the Hudson has been on 

 the decline. Another region in which viticulture reaches con- 

 siderable magnitude is in several islands in Lake Erie near 

 Sandusky, Ohio, the product going largely for the manufacture 

 of wine. At one time grapes were grown commercially on the 

 banks of the Ohio River about Cincinnati and westward into 

 Indiana. The industry here, however, is a thing of the past. 

 Another region in which grape-growing was once of prime 

 importance but now lags has its center at Hermann, Missouri. 

 The newest grape-producing area worthy of note is in south- 

 western ^Michigan about the towns of Lawton and Paw Paw. 

 A small but very prosperous grape-growing region has its 

 center at Egg Harbor, New Jersey. Ives is the mainstay 

 among varieties in this region. In the southern states, 

 Muscadine grapes are grown in a small way in every part 

 of the cotton-belt and varieties of other native species are 

 to be found in home vineyards in the upland regions, but 

 nowhere in the South can it be said that grape-growing is 

 a commercial industry. 



The Determinants of Grape Regions 



Climate, soil, site, the surface features of the land, insects, 

 fungi and commercial geography are the chief factors that de- 

 termine regions for money-making in grape-growing. This 

 has been made plain in the foregoing discussion of grape regions, 

 but the several factors must be taken up in greater detail. To 

 bound the regions is of less importance than to understand wliy 

 they exist — less needful to remember, more needful to under- 

 stand. From what has been said, the reader has no doubt al- 

 ready concluded that successful grape-growing is in largest 

 measure due to kindliness in climate. 



