lOO THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



is similar to that of his predecessors and very good ; but here all similarity 

 ends and practically all value. After having made forty-one species, the 

 greater portion of which have names given by himself, he says: "By the 

 above enumeration of our Grapes I have done for this genus what Michaux 

 did for our Oaks. Owing to the great confusion of former authors, and 

 the difficulty of comparing the leaves and fruits of all the species, it is 

 hardlv as perfect as I should wish. Rigid botanists may perhaps wish to 

 reduce this species to a minor number or consider some as hybrids: if 

 they can find good permanent collective characters, let them reduce our 

 Grapes and Oaks to a dozen species. But the angular or striated branches, 

 the long or short petioles, the oval, cordate or reniform leaves, etc., must 

 always be deemed essential specific characters, and several of my new 

 species, such as V. bracteata, V. angulata, V. peltata, V. canina, V. blanda, 

 V. longifolia, V. acerifolia, V. amara, V. prolifera, etc., must be deemed 

 very distinct." None of those of which he says " must be deemed essential 

 specific characters" is now so considered and the species which must be 

 " deemed very distinct " are many of them unrecognized and none of 

 them known by the name which he gave. 



Le Conte, about the middle of the last century, did much work in the 

 botany of grapes, publishing several papers in the Proceedings of the Academy 

 of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. These were in the nature of mono- 

 graphs although they were not, so far as known, published separately. He 

 gives twelve species generally taken from other authors. 



A little later than Le Conte, Engelmann of St. Louis, gave his attention 

 to the genus Vitis, clearing up a number of disputed points. His work was 

 published in various reports and later in the Bushberg Catalogue and Grape 

 Manual. Engelmann 's studies are particularly valuable in that he was the 

 first botanist working with grapes v/ho lived in the middle west and the 

 territory over which he ranged in his botanical expeditions was compara- 

 tively virgin. This was about the time of the reconstitution of the French 

 vineyards by the use of American roots as stocks on which to graft their 

 French vines to enable them to resist phylloxera. Many thousand cuttings 

 and rooted vines of American grapes were sent to France annually for this 

 purpose. The value of grafting on resistant stocks had stimulated an 

 interest among French scientists in grapes generally and particularly in 



