15 



existence with the disease. According to Mr. Munson the Ber- 

 landieri occurs mostly on the upper portions of limestone ridges, 

 but occasionally descends down into the bottoms of ravines and 

 creeks. Why is it not more numerous on the richer s.oils than on 

 the poorer and drier? From our experience, before we had this 

 disease, we know, that most any vine will succeed much better on 

 rich or moist soils than on the poorer or drier. Wherever a wild 

 vine is found most, there conditions for its best development are 

 most favorable. Why does the Berlandieri not inhabit Geprgia or 

 Florida, where summer rains are much more frequent and regular 

 than in western Texas? In the distribution of native vines over 

 the eastern States we find that almost every region and every 

 kind of soil has its own species of grape vine, or if more, related 

 species. We certainly have the same phenomenon also with other 

 annual and perennial plants. A good many species of wild plants 

 have their own restricted area, where they succeed well, while 

 in other places they are unthrifty and short-lived. But how do we 

 know, that in such unfavorable locations the death ,of such plants 

 is not hastened or caused directly by some minute organisms, 

 which have defied discovery by the closest microscopical investi- 

 gations? 



ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN SPECIES. 



I believe it is claimed that all existing grape species have de- 

 scended from an original or primordial form different from any 

 existing species. But this primordial form undoubtedly has been 

 much more like the Viniferas than any of the American species, 

 as the former are least hardy to any of the parasitic diseases of 

 the grape vine and also least hardy to extremes in climate. Nature 

 always developes the hardiest and it is not very likely that it 

 would make a retrograde movement in producing the Eupopean 

 species, at least not in regard to enduring extreme cold con- 

 ditions, as in the northern countries of Europe, where the Vini- 

 feras can not exist, climatic conditions are not any more severe 

 than in the northeastern United States or sputhern Canada. If 

 the original species had possessed any resistance to the 

 Phylloxera, some traces would be left of this in Vinifera, taken 

 into account its manifold types. In regard to resistance to the 

 Anaheim disease this is a matter of adaptation. Considering 

 the fixedness of the forms of American species and their peculiar 

 distributions for special soils and over restricted areas, a good 



