62 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



of our cultivated varieties j for some of them have become so modified that 

 they furnish scarcely any indication of their parentage. If those grape- 

 growers who take interest in such matters will send specimens of such cul- 

 tivated varieties as they wish to properly classif}-, to Dr. Engelmann, either 

 directly or through me, they will at least get the opinion of one who is 

 good authority, and such action may be mutualh^ profitable. Specimens 

 should be sent at flowering time, and should include the whole shoot with 

 full-sized and young leaves, blossom, and tendril; and after the fruit is rij^e 

 a bunch of the berries and seeds from the same stock should follow. 



The proper classification of our different varieties is of more iniport- 

 an'ce, in this connection, than would at first appear. Since the publication 

 of some of the facts set forth in this article, a few enterprising French grape- 

 growers, ill the districts desolated by the louse, have conceived the idea of 

 importing from this countrj' such varieties as are most exempt from the 

 attacks of the Phylloxera, and M. LeFranc, the Minister of Agriculture, has 

 likewise expressed his intention of so doing. Already a number of varie- 

 ties, and especiall}" Cunningham, Herbemont, ]S"orton's Virginia, Concord, 

 Hartford Prolific, Clinton and Martha have been shipped to M. J. Leen- 

 hardt, of Montpellier, France; and others to Switzerland, by Messrs. Isidor 

 Busli it ( 'o. If America has given this plague to Europe, why should she 

 not ill return, furnish her with vines which are capable of resisting it? At 

 least nothing but good can come of the trial, for though our grapes are gen- 

 erally sneered at on the other sidf. of the water, we have made such rajjid 

 improvements in viticulture during the last ten 3-ears, that the}' scarcely 

 know anj'thing of our better kinds ; and many of those which do well in 



or sometimes whitish, wool or down, which in the wiM plant remains on the lower side, but almost 

 disappears in the mature leaf of some cultivated varieties: berries large, in rather small or middle- 

 sized bunches, bearing 2 or 3 or sometimes -t seeds. - ■' 



This plant, usually known as the Fox-grope or Northern Fox-grape is a native of the eastern 

 slope of the continent from New England to South Carolina, where it prefers wet thickets; it extends 

 into the Alleghany mountains, and here and there even down their western declivity, but is a 

 struiiger to the Mississippi Valley. The most important varieties of this grape-vine now cultivated in 

 our country (such as the Catawba, Concord, Isabella, Hartford Prolific, and dozens of others) are the 

 oflVpring of this species; they are all easily recognized by the characters above given, and mo 

 readily by the peculiar arrangement of the tendrils as above described. 



If. G^ffipe-vines n^ith a firmly adherinff bark, tvJiich does not scale off; tendrils almost 

 afiiufifs simple; berries very large (7 — 10 lines in diameter) , very few in a hunch; seeds 

 icitli transverse wrinkles or shallow grooves on both sides. 



iJ. ViTis vtTLPiNA, Linnceus: Bushy, or sometimes climbing high, with small (2 or at most 3 

 inchi-s wide) rounded, heart-shaped, firm and glossy dark green leaves, smooth or rarely slightly 

 hair.> on the under side, with coarse, large or shallow teeth. 



This southern species, known under the na,ia& oi Southern Fox-grape, Bullace, ov Bullet-grape is 

 found along water-courses, not further north than North Carolina and Arkansas, and may possibly 

 straggk- into southeastern Missouri. Some of its cultivated varieties, especially the white Scupper- , 

 nong, are highly esteemed in the South but do not perfect fruit in the latitude of St. Louis. 



1 recognize only three other species of true grape-vines in the territories of the United States . The 

 most remarkable of these is the Mustang grape of Texas, Vitis candicans, Engelm. (F. Musta)igensis, 

 Buckley), with rather large, rounded, almost toothless, rarely deeply-lobed leaves; white woolly on 

 the under side, bearing large berries, which in its native country are now beginning to be made into 

 wine. Vitis Californica, Bentham, the only wildgrape of California, has rounded downy leaves, and 

 small berries, and is not made use of as far as known. Vitis Arizonica, Engelm. similar to the 

 last, but glabrous, with middle-sized berries, repoi-ted to be of a luscious taste. Neither of these 

 show a prominent rapht* on the seed, so that this character is peculiar only to the tirst 3 species 

 her'- emmiei-ated. 



