148 • AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



hence, where errors, either in statements of fact or of experimental demonstra- 

 tion have been admitted, it becomes the duty of those in search of truth to 

 point out the mistakes and errors of the past wherever discovered. Holding 

 these views, I trust that the criticisms I am reluctantly compelled to pass on 

 two articles on the grape vine which appear in the report of the Department 

 of Agriculture for the year 1S62, may be understood as having but one object 

 in view — reliable data on vine culture in the United States. 



In the report of the Commissioner of Agriculture to Congress for 1SG2 will 

 be found the two articles spoken of, the first entitled " Climatology of Ameri- 

 can grajies," by James S. Lippincott, Haddonfield, New Jersey; and the 

 other, "The grape and its improvement by hybridizing, cross-breeding, and 

 seedlings," by George W. Campbell, Delaware, Ohio ; both of which are able 

 productions, and, so far as they relate to vine culture in those parts of the 

 United States lying in the Mississippi valley and eastward to the Atlantic 

 ocean, are of great practical value. Both authors, however, apply the scope 

 of their observations to the area of the United States, and one of the gentle- 

 men to America, each affirming that the wine grape of Europe cannot be accli- 

 mated and successfully cultivated in this country. I quote the following 

 passages from the essays spoken of. 



On page 196 of the report of 1862, Mr. Lippincott, when speaking of the 

 wine grape of Europe, remarks : " The constitution of the wine grape is not 

 fitted to withstand these sudden changes from extreme humidity to extreme 

 dryness, and the plant and its fruit rapidly deteriorate in our uncongenial air. 

 To these causes may be ascribed the prevalence of 'mildew' and 'rot,' the 

 almost universal attendants of foreign vine culture in the United *SY(//c.y, and 

 which no skill can obviate, and from which no section has been found claiming 

 exemption." On page 197, ,by the same writer, are several paragraphs con- 

 taining similar statements, from which 1 select a part of one only. Continues 

 Mr. Lippincott: ^'The onlij ir'meyards ever successful in America are those of 

 American grapes.'^ The italics are my own. 



From Mr. Campbell's article, on page 209,1 quote the following : "For 

 many years the introduction of the foreign European varieties excited the hope 

 of enthusiastic cultivators, who believed that in favored localities these grapes 

 might be acclimatized and made to succeed in open vineyard culture. Expe- 

 rience has in all cases proven the delusive character of these hopes ; for after 

 a few years of partial or doubtful success, all such projects have been succes- 

 eively abandoned, and it is finally regarded by intelligent horticulturists aa 

 definitively settled that the different varieties of the foreign vine, or 'citis vini- 

 fcra,' are not adapted to open air culture in this country. The physical char- 

 acter and constitution of the foreign varieties have been found wholly unsuited 

 to the cUiaate of the United States.'^ Again I add the italics. Let us look at 

 a few of the facts bearing on the culture of the wine grape of Europe in the 

 United States. The Catholic priests, who took a prominent part in all the 

 eettlements of Spanish America, carried with them to the New World the ritis 

 vinif ra, or black wine grape of Spain, which they propagated extensively at 

 all the mission establishments, where it is yet to be found, after a century of 

 cultivation, in vigorous and healthy bearing wherever they erected the cross, 

 how the Rio Grande of Texas to the shores of the Pacific ocean. In fact, the 

 culture of the vine succeeded so well that about fifty years since, when the 

 mission establishments were at their greatest height of prosperity, very exten 

 sive vini^yards were cultivated, and a pure wine, the simple juice of their un 

 equalled grapes, was so large a product of their agricultural industry that it 

 was freely drank by all classes, even to the neophyte Indians. The rich mis- 

 tion wines, as well as a species of brandy called aguardiente, at that ])eriod, 

 filso formed quite an item in the exports from California to Manilla, Mexico, 

 Aud Central America. At some of the miscsions records havft been made of the 



