of Rural At't and Taste. 



339 



New Grapes as Proven in 

 1874 



BY S. J. PARKER, M.D. 



A S proven this year of 1874, the following 

 ■^ grapes are worth attention : 



Ci'otou. — This grape in the Cayuga Lake 

 Valley is healthy, hardy and prolific. Has a 

 longish, loose bunch, with large berries, and 

 also smaller ones. Bunch, six to seven inches 

 long, and three to four broad. Golden yellow, 

 with thin, white bloom. It ripens slowly, and 

 hence those eating it early, and partially 

 ripened, will be apt to condemn it as sweet 

 but flavorless. Fully ripe when Concords are 

 also fully mature ; it is juicy like the foreign 

 sweet water ; sweet, and with a low grade of 

 aroma, but what aroma it has is pleasant. It 

 will not do to eat it with other and higher 

 flavored grapes, as they make it seem insipid. 

 But fully ripe, and eaten alone, it will, I 

 think, be considered valuable, and be sought 

 after. Like all white grapes, both European 

 and native, it is apt to have a few berries rot 

 and slink away in nearly all its bunches, but 

 not to much extent. 



Walter. — Grown on Concord and Isabella 

 roots. This is a grape large in berry and 

 bunch. I must class it with high flavored 

 grapes — it having at this place a strong 

 honey-sweet aroma, that lasts long on the 

 taste nerves of the mouth. This flavor is so 

 strong as to destroy the aroma of less decided 

 flavors. Hence it can be eaten alone, by 

 itself, or with others. The grape on its own 

 roots is less vigorous, and with less aroma. 

 It is healthy and hardy here. 



The Ithaca — This is my own seedling, 

 This grape ripens before Delaware and 

 Concord, still proves hardy, healthy and 

 vigorous. It is in bunch and berry larger 

 than Walter ; a pure greenish yellow, with a 

 rose-like smell, and a high Chasselas Masque- 

 like flavor, similar to, but not as high as its 

 partial parent, it being a cross of Chasselas 

 on Delaware. A few berries rotted this year ; 



not many. The fruit by the quantity looks 

 well, both in baskets and when it is packed in 

 boxes. Sold for thirty cents a pound against 

 Delaware and other grapes at ten cents. A 

 cold August was against it this year, yet it was 

 the second in earliness and the best in quality 

 of all grapes here. 



Wyominy Red — This grape which I 

 have so long entreated the public to enquire 

 for and plant, has at last become one sought 

 after, and it is being rapidly diffused, so much 

 so, that the few thousands propagated here, 

 yearly, cannot supply the demand. Its great 

 value is, that it is hardy, prolific, and ripens 

 in advance of all other grapes, and hence 

 sells well. The whole crop here, sold at 

 twenty cents or more, and did not supply the 

 local demand for it. It is not the best in 

 quality, as it is a Fox grape, but is a good 

 grape ; red, about the size and appearance of 

 Walter ; not as choice in flavor, but sweet 

 and agreeable. 



Nathan C. Ely, — This is a seedling of 

 David Thompson, of Green Island, near Troy, 

 N. Y. Unexpectedly to me its bunch proved 

 remarkably large, so much so, as to take us 

 all by surprise. Bunches, nine inches long 

 by five wide, were very common. Several 

 were a foot long and eight inches through the 

 shoulder. The berry is medium-large in size, 

 yellowish-green, very closely set in its crowded 

 bunch. It appears in shape and form like an 

 European grape, just as if it had been grown 

 under glass. It is probably three-fourths foreign 

 pollen. It resembles no foreign grape I have 

 any knowledge of, though I am familiar with 

 most of the usual and some rare kinds as 

 grown under glass. At Ithaca we have in 

 this vine, that on a common vineyard trellis, 

 totally improtected in the open out-door air, 

 ripens its fruit, a magnificent bunch and a fine 

 appearing berry, with perfectly healthy foli- 

 age and ripened wood. Yet it is a matter of 

 regret that it is late, coming to maturity after 

 Concord, ripening just before Isabella. Vines 

 load themselves with these splendid clusters. 

 I also regret that it is less sweet and less in 

 aroma than Croton. Indeed it is deficient in 

 sugar and flavor. 



