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perfection at the north except in favorable seasons. Some varieties of this class 
are also our finest table grapes. The leaf of this species is but slightly downy. 
Some of the varieties of Vitis labrusca are the most useful grapes in cultivation ; 
the Concord has for many years attained a supremacy in this respect. The 
Ives’s Seedling has recently presented claims that are beginning to be acknow- 
ledged. 
“The Hartford Prolific is one of the earliest varieties, and largely cultivated 
as such; but all of these are popular, simply because they are hardier than 
otherwise sup°rior varieties of their class; were it not so, we should all most 
certainly: prefer the Adirondack, the earliest of all good grapes; the Catawba, so 
well known for its excellent qualities; the Iowa, highest flavored in the list ; 
the Rebecca and Maxatawny, white grapes, that, when in perfection, may be 
compared to a Golden Chasselas; as also several of Rogers’s hybrids, which 
practically may be referred to this class for their main characteristics of growth 
and habit. 
“This section of our native grapes has received more attention than any of 
the others; the size of the berries and fine appearance of the branches have en- 
eouraged a disposition to improvement, and many of the latter seedlings are of 
superior quality, but they are more subject to disease than are others of the 
American species. Even in their native habitats the wild fox grapes of the 
woods will be found suffering from the same rot and mildew so prevalent among 
their more civilized descendants. 
« And here I would remark that a wide field lies open for improving our na- 
tive grapes; a field that has scarely been trod upon. [I alluded to the hybridi- 
zation of the native species with each other in contradistinction to the use of the 
foreign grape for this purpose, which tends to perpetuate the diseases to which 
the foreign grape is liable in this climate. We have in the Delaware grape an 
example of what may be expected from this combination of American species— 
a hybrid between the Vitis labrusca and Vitis estivalis. 
“Tt partakes of the tendency to leaf mildew of the fermer; the freedom from 
rot in berry of the latter, and a fruit superior to both. 
“ Great results await us in this direction. 
“Place a berry, having the size and ‘fine appearance of the Concord or the 
Union Village, on the bunch of Norton’s Virginia Seedling, or the Deverauz, 
combining all their good qualities, and there is nothing quixotic in the expecta- 
tion of realizing a fruit that will equal in its magnificent dimensions the famed 
grape of Syria. 
“With regard to the origin of fungoid diseases I have designedly refrained 
from expressing any emphatic opinion This question is still a subject of inquiry 
with botanists, whether it is a cause or consequence of disease. My observa- 
tions lead me to the conelusion that it is both. One thing, however, is certain, 
that fruit-growers must sooner or later recognize in fungoid growths their 
greatest enemy to success. As closely connected with this subject, it may not be 
out of place here to mention a circumstance that deeply concerns pomologists as 
a body. I allude to the exceedingly vague and loose, if not untruthful, expres- 
sions constantly used in the description of new grapes. I question whether, 
among all the numerous new varieties that have been introduced during the past 
- fifteen years, any one of them has been described without special mention hav- 
ing been made of its entire exemption from mildew. It is charitable to suppose 
that this may be true in certain localities, but it is not the whole truth; and to 
presume that any one variety of fruit, grain, or vegetable esculent can be found 
to adapt itself equally well over a country whose climates extend from the frigid 
to the torrid zones, is utterly inconsistent with our knowledge of vegetable 
economy.” ° 
