Vinifera grapes, the French for example, pronounces the flavor of the Concord grape very 

 disagreeable, "foxy" and "buggy," with a very unpleasant earthy acid flavor about the seeds; 

 but an American, especially a New Englander or New Yorker who has been accustomed to eating 

 Concord grapes, regards the foxiness as fine flavor! and the more the better! He breaks the 

 skin and swallows the tough oyster-like acid pulp, seeds and all, whole, and thus avoids the earthy 

 taste about the seeds and lets his stomach wrestle with the oysters and risks appendicitis and 

 declares he is eating the best of all American grapes, when in fact it is about the poorest, as you 

 will learn when noting the table of sweetness and acidity what the very sensitive instruments 

 say, the true test of sweet and acid fruits. The tongue is incapable of determining the exact 

 sugar and acid, but merely determines the combined effect. A grape may be low in sugar, and 

 if also low in acid the taste will say it is sweet, and if high in sugar and yet relatively higher 

 than the other in acid, will pronounce the really sweeter grape more acid. This will clearly 

 appear as the table made from the instrument readings is studied. The varieties tested by me 

 ~and here tabulated were grown in my vineyards under identically the same conditions as nearly 

 as possible. The season of 1906 was unusually rainy, hence all the readings are 5 to 20 points 

 lower for sugar than in the season of 1907, which was much warmer and drier, and the acid 

 from 1 to 4 points higher. 



A fruit without acid is flat and insipid to the taste, if it has proportionately too much acid, 

 soon "sets the teeth on edge," or is not edible, but with just the right proportion of sweet and 

 acid is very appetizing and agreeable, providing the flavor, also, is agreeable. For making the 

 proper or most satisfactory sprightliness to fruit, or wine, it has been found that the fresh juice 

 as expressed from the pulp, as in making wine, should contain about 80 of sugar on Oeschle's 

 scale and about 6 per mill acid by Twitchell's Acidometer. Juice containing those quantities, 

 when made into wine, without adding sugar, will develop about 8 per cent of alcohol, and will 

 keep well in bottles in the cellar, and is suitable for light table wine and for medicinal purposes. 

 If the juice does not contain 80 of sugar, and as much as 6 per mill acid it will not keep, unless 

 fortified with sugar in fermentation, or with brandy. Concord is a grape so low in sugar that its 

 wine will not keep unless strongly fortified. 



The varieties tested are given nearly in order of sweetness, the sweetest first, the least 

 sweet last. 



The leading old varieties and a good many of my own production are represented, and 

 this is sufficient to indicate the specific bloods that produce varieties high or low in sugar and 

 acid. But some combinations are sweeter than either parent. Limy soils produce sweeter fruit, 

 as a rule, than very sandy soil, and dry seasons than wet ones. 



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