ON VARIETIES, BACES, SUB-SPECIES, AND SPECIES. 103 



an examination of the means adapted to the investigation of 

 these points will show the relation between theory and practice, 

 by demonstrating the necessity of attending to both, if we desire 

 to ascertain the truth. Whilst we again call attention to the 

 services rendered by Count Odart to Ampelography, we wish 

 to direct his attention, and that of his successors, to inquiries 

 necessary to be made, in order that tliis new branch of horticul- 

 ture may attain the precision of which it is capable. 



Can we, in the present state of our knowledge, apply one of 

 the distinctions before established by us to tlie Vitis vmifera 

 of Linnseus ? 



TVe should answer yes, if all botanists admitted, with M. 

 Loiseleur-Deslongcliamps, the wild vine, still to be found in the 

 hedgerows and woods of many places in France, to be the stock 

 from which all the vines now cultivated in Europe, whether for 

 eating or for wine making, are derived. The Vitis vinifera 

 would belong to tlie division Gamma, if the type were admitted 

 to bear black grapes, and that the wild vine is only a varie'ty of 

 it, or vice versa : if this question be left in doubt, the species 

 belongs to the division Delta. 



Unfortunately botanists and gardeners do not agree with M. 

 Loiseleur-Deslongcliamps : according to M. Michaux, it is pro- 

 bable that our cultivated vines spring from ten or twelve distinct 

 species, natives of Armenia, Caramania, Asiatic Georgia, and 

 the southern pro\ inces of Persia. M. Sageret's opinion is some- 

 what between these two ; he is inclined to think that the small 

 black fruited Vitis vinifera, which grows in the hedges and hill 

 sides of the woods of the Gatinais, may be the stock of our com- 

 mon vines ; but that the better sorts were at some very distant 

 period imported into France, and that of these there may be 

 hybrids, or at least sub-hybrids. 



In this state of uncertainty, and acknowledging our inability 

 to decide in favour of one opinion more than the other, we shall 

 merely denote the species, be there one or more, to which culti- 

 vated vines are referred by the letter Omega, in order to express 

 tlie doubt still hanging over the subordination of the individuals 

 which compose the ditierent groups of vines. 



Although the origin of our vines is still a matter in dispute, 

 we shall subjoin a few facts relative to the propagation of many 

 of their varieties by seed and division, in order to apply the con- 

 sequences to be drawn from those facts to tlie general considera- 

 tions already laid before the reader (§§ 3, 4, 5). 



