1883-] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



221 



to give the charm of variety to collections. — 

 Gafden. 



History of the Grape. — In a review of 

 Mr. Barron's recent book on the giap^, the 

 Gardeners' Chronicle says : " In the first chapter 

 we have an historical sketch, which we should 

 prefer to have dispensed with. It would be 

 rather difficult to establish that 'Juno's crown 

 was made ot the vine,' in view of the fact that 

 the existence of Juno herself is open to ques- 

 tion ! We should deprecate any discussion upon 

 such a point, which is not of a practical char- 1 

 acter, but if the history had to be gone into at 

 all, it might as well have been stated that by far 

 the earliest records of the vine are the fossil im- 

 prints of Montpellier and those of Provence, both ; 

 of unknown date, but in any case long prior to any 

 human record, Egyptian or otherwise, mentioned 

 by the author. The Swiss and Italian lake-dwell- 

 ers also knew the vine in the Bronze Age, but no 

 one knows precisely when that age was. Mr. Bar- 

 ron tells us that Syria 'would appear' to be the 

 native country of the vine, and that is possible, 

 but no evidence is given in support of the assump- 

 tion, while the balance of authority, as summed 

 up by De Candolle in his 'Origine des Plantes 

 Cultivees,' recently noticed in our columns, points 

 rather to the south of the Caucasus and the ad- 

 jacent region between the Black and the Caspian 

 Seas as the home of the vine. Before this question 

 can be settled however, we shall have to be sure 

 about a matter on which Mr. Barron is silent. 

 What was the origin of our cultivated vines ? Do 

 all our European and Western Asiatic vines (for 

 we may safely exclude the American species and 

 numerous other species from the Eastern tropics) 

 proceed from one species — that which we now call 

 V. vinifera — or have two or more species con- 

 curred in developing that now very artificial 

 product, the cultivated vine? In the Caucasus 

 there is one species and two varieties, from 

 which — we are speaking on the strength of 

 information collected by De Candolle — the numer- 

 ous varieties cultivated in Armenia have evidently 

 sprung. Regel, however, leans to the opinion that 

 our cultivated Vine is a hybrid between V. labrusca 

 and V. vulpina, both natives of North America, 

 the Himalayas, Japan, and China; and if vari- 

 ability in the offspring is any test, the hybrid origin 

 would in so far be strengthened, but in any case, 

 in the case of a plant cultivated for so long a period 

 over so large an area, there has been both time and 

 opportunity for plenty of variation even without 

 cross-breeding. The total number of varieties de- 



scribed from all countries is estimated at about 

 2,000, but in this country the number grown is rela- 

 tively very small. Mr. Barron gives, some interest- 

 ing figures relating to this point — he tells us that in 

 1768, eighteen sorts were described by Miller, in 

 i79i,Speechly recorded fifty, in 1810, Forsyth men- 

 tioned fifty-three. The catalogue of the Horticul- 

 tural Society in 183T, drawn up by Robert Thomp- 

 son, contained 182 names (that of 1842, which we 

 have not at hand, is said by Darwin to have com- 

 prised ninety-nine varieties ), while Hogg's Fruit 

 Manual oi 1875 contains descriptions of 143. Mr, 

 Barron himself enumerated i do, but he purposely 

 omits mention of many inferior varieties." 



Cinchonas in the Cape de Verb Islands 



Professor Henriquez, alluding to M. Van Gorkom's 

 recently published treatise on Cinchonas (see p. 84), 

 informs us that in the Cape de Verd Islands, es- 

 pecially at St. Antao, and at St. Thome, where 

 there are already thousands of plants of C. suc- 

 cirubra, officinalis and Ledgeriana, analyses have 

 been made of the bark of some of these species, 

 and with most satisfactory results. Most of these 

 plants were sent from the Botanic Garden atCoim- 

 bra, whence seeds were also sent. The plants have 

 been multiplied by cuttings. — Gardener s Chron. 



Commencement of Cultivation. — The Gar- 

 deners Chronicle says : " Of the actual commence- 

 ment of cultivation on a large scale little or noth- 

 ing is known. A Fig is represented in the pyra- 

 mids of Ghizeh, which have an antiquity esti- 

 mated by various writers at a period varying from 

 1,500 to 4,200 years before the Christian era. In 

 China, 2,700 years before Christ, religious cere- 

 monies were instituted in connection with agricul- 

 tural pursuits. But these dates, even if trust- 

 worthy, evidently do not go back far enough. 

 China, south-west Asia (with Egypt), and tropical 

 America, are the three principal regions in which 

 the cultivation of leading agricultural plants 

 originated, and from which it spread." 



A Tertio-MILLENNIAL. — Philadelphia has just 

 had its Bi-Centennial, but we have older cities 

 now. Santa F^ is about to hold its 250th birth- 

 day. The New Mexicans intend to have a grand 

 time over it. There will be a great exposition 

 interspersed with all sorts of fun and frolic, ex- 

 i tending from July 2nd to August 3rd. Truly we 

 ! are becoming something more than a young coun- 

 try when these things are. 



Mr. H. H. Rushy. — This energetic botanical 

 collector is again in the South. Early in May he 

 had reached Fort Whipple, in Arizona. 



