VI PREFACE. 



serve the prospective planter somewhat in selecting soils and locations Vnit 

 as it is not written with this as a chief end, it falls far short of some of the 

 standard treatises'on grape culture in this respect. 



Comparatively few statistics are given, only those which are necessary 

 to show the volume of grape products and the extent of the vineyards in 

 the State and country at the present time. The figures for the whole 

 country are surpassed by those of no other native fruit, and only by corn 

 and tobacco among all the domesticated native plants. 



The botany of the grape has been the most perplexing problem to deal 

 with in the preparation of this work. The variability of the grape is so 

 great, and the variations are so often toward closely related species, that 

 it is difficult to tell where one species ends and another begins. This, of 

 course, has led to differences in opinions. Tlien, too, the several mono- 

 graphers have not had the same specimens to work with ; men do not have 

 the same powers of discrimination; and the arrangement of botanical 

 groups, based upon the characters of the plants and the theory of descent 

 with adaptive modifications, is not governed by definite rules; hence 

 liotanical divisions are arbitrary and differ with the judgments of the 

 botanists who make them. For these reasons we liave as many different 

 arrangements of species of grapes as there are men who have worked them 



over. 



Since this work is not written from the standpoint of the botanist 

 but of the horticulturist, no effort has been made to revise the botany of 

 the grape. But it has been necessary to select some arrangement of species 

 in order to make such disposition of the cultivated varieties that their 

 characters and relationships can best be shown. In making a choice of 

 the several recent classifications of American grapes, three main considera- 

 tions have been in mind: First, that the arrangement should separate the 

 species in the genus freely, thus decreasing the size of the groups so that 

 they may be more easily studied. Second, that it should show as clearly 

 as possible the relationships of the various groups and of their development — 

 the evolution of the grape. Third, that it be an arrangement in good stand- 

 ing with botanists and horticulturists. After having examined all American 

 classifications of grapes and all recent European ones, Bailey's classifica- 

 tion, as set forth in his monograph of the Vitaceae in Gray's Synoptical 



