IN MISSOURI 69 



An important grape center early sprung up in 

 Gasconade county, eastern Missouri, a locality which 

 later became conspicuous because of the labors of 

 George Husmann and Jacob Rommel. The former 

 settled at Hermann, and the latter at Morrison. The 

 first cultivated grape to fruit at Hermann, according 

 to Husmann, was an Isabella, which was planted by 

 Mr. Fugger, and which bore in 1845. The first wine 

 was made in 1846. The Catawba was introduced, and 

 first bore in 1848. This variety awakened great in- 

 terest, but it soon succumbed to disease, and its place 

 was taken by Norton's Virginia, of which we have yet 

 to speak (page 78). Husmann early gave his attention 

 to writing, and has produced "The Cultivation of the 

 Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines" 

 (1866), which, in its modern and enlarged form (1880), 

 is known as "American Grape Growing and Wine 

 Making." He also established and edited the "Grape 

 Culturist" (1869-1871), which was the first American 

 journal to devote itself exclusively to a single type of 

 plant. Since Adlum, no writer of books has so clearly 

 and forcibly emphasized the importance of the native 

 grapes as Husmann. . Jacob Rommel gave his atten- 

 tion to the breeding of varieties, using a new stock 

 the river -bank grape (Vitis vulpina, or V. riparia) 

 as the parent of crosses. Some of his results are 

 Elvira, Transparent, Faith, Etta, Montefiore, and the 

 like. 



It is not our purpose to follow this history further, 

 except to note the introduction of a few remaining novel 

 types of varieties. 



In 1843, a new grape was exhibited before the Mas- 

 sachusetts Horticultural Society, in Boston, by Mrs. 



