70 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



Diana Crehore, of Milton, Massachusetts. It was a 

 seedling of the Catawba, with round pale red or amber 

 berries. It was named the Diana, in honor of the origi- 

 nator. This grape soon attracted wide attention, and it 

 was the precursor of a constantly widening stream of 

 ameliorated seedlings of known parentage. The novi- 

 tiate stage of our grape culture, the introduction of 

 grapes from the wild, now came rapidly to a close, and 

 the epoch of definite attempt at the breeding of varie- 

 ties came on. Some of our native fruits, notably the 

 cranberry and dewberry, are yet in this initiate stage, 

 in which the new varieties are still such as are picked 

 up in wild areas rather than in gardens. 



The next great event in the evolution of American 

 grapes was the making of hybrids with the European 

 vine. The first authentic hybrid vine was exhibited 

 before the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in 1854, 

 by John Fisk Allen, author of "A Practical Treatise on 

 the Culture and Treatment of the Grape Vine." It was 

 a hybrid between the Golden Chasselas and Isabella. 

 About this time E. S. Rogers, of Roxbury, Massachu- 

 setts, began those remarkable experiments in hybridiza- 

 tion which have given us so many excellent varieties. 

 Rogers obtained his first fruits in 1856. J. H. Ricketts, 

 a bookbinder of Newburgh, New York, George Has- 

 kell, lawyer, of Ipswich, Massachusetts, Jacob Rommel 

 and Hermann Jaeger, of Missouri, Jacob Moore, of New 

 York, and T. V. Munson, of Texas, have greatly extended 

 our knowledge of the possibilities of crossing amongst 

 the grapes. But the primary hybrids of the American 

 and European species have never made a great impres- 

 sion upon commercial grape -culture, although many of 

 them are much prized for their high quality in the home 



