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three principal native species, (of which each one has several varieties,) viz: 
the Mustang, the Postoak, and the Winter grape. 
The Mustang bears a cluster of middling size, with large berries, well shoul- 
dered, of thick skin and dark bluish color, covered with blue bloom and of sharp 
acid taste, and ripens at the end of July. Many prepare from this species wine 
for domestic use, but it is mostly quite inferior in quality. 
The Postoak bears also clusters of middling size, well shouldered, with large 
berries of thick skin, but they are of dark brown hue and of spicy acid taste, 
and ripen near the end of July. Of this species I never yet have seen fermented 
wine. 
The Winter grape with middling large, rather long bunches, without shoul- 
ders, has very small round berries of thin skin, transparently brown, covered 
with bluish bloom, of exceedingly pleasing and spicy taste, only a little too acid, 
ripens in October. When gallicised and the fermentation is properly guarded, 
it yields an excellent claret. 
The latter two species are adapted for general cultivation, but neither scaffold - 
ing nor pole could follow the exuberent growth of the Mustang and render it 
the necessary support. The Postoak does not creep high and easily grows, even 
from cuttings. The Winter grape is the finest and noblest of all three, and 
bears also on low vines, but cuttings of it cannot be coaxed to grow even by 
the most tender care. 
There, are some other species of grape in Texas, as the Muscatine, which is 
mostly found near the shore, but it shows itself very sterile in its wild condition. 
We need not be discouraged by the failure of some persons, as most of them 
do not understand anything of the culture of the American grape. I have never 
seen as yet a vine trimmed according to the splendidly successful renewal sys- 
tem, and no one as yet could give me thorough information as to the ameliora- 
tion of vines by and through themselves, so whatever knowledge I possess I 
have had to acquire from books and correspondence. Let us unite and begin 
the work, for there is not a hill between the Sabine and the Rio Grande, nor a 
valley from the western mountains to the Gulf, where the luxuriant vines do not 
smile from the top of the mighty oak and with exuberant clusters of delicious 
fruit proclaim to us: Texas is a wine land! 
INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE GRAPE. 
S. V. Rathvon, of Pennsylvania, furnishes the following paper upon a subject 
of increasing interest among grape-growers : 
The grape vine is, unfortunately, subjected to the depredations of quite a number of insects 
of various species, but perhaps there are none more troublesome or more pernicious in their 
effect than the different species of ‘‘ leaf hoppers” that infest it, and which are sometimes 
very improperly calied thrips. Before we enter into a discussion of the habits of this spuri- 
ous thrips, perhaps it would be well and useful to have a more correct understanding of the 
true one, in order that we may kuow precisely where we stand and what we are talking 
about in relation to their history and habits. 
The true ‘‘ thrips,” of which there are several species in the United States, all belong to 
the single family thripide, and they constitute Mr. Haliday’s order thysanoptera.* They are 
minute black insects, rarely exceeding a line in length, with four equal, long, narrow, mem- 
branous wings—neither folded nor reticulated—with long cilie, or fringes, all around both 
edges, and laid horizontally along the back, when at rest. There is very little difference, in 
the general form, between the larva, the pupa, and the imago. In the first state the wings 
are entirely absent, in the second theyare present rudimentally, and in the third they are fully 
developed. The commonest species usually occurs most abundantly about the time of the 
wheat harvest, and hence it has been supposed that this insect ( Thrips cerealeum ?) is insome 
manner connected with the injury of the crop; but this, from recent observations and inves- 
* Fringe-winged insects. 
