THE DELAWARE GRAPE 71 



garden. What they gain in quality they are apt to lose 

 in amenability to mildew and phylloxera, in lack of 

 robustness, or in infertility of the bloom. The sec- 

 ondary or attenuated hybrids, however, those born of 

 hybrids, or of a hybrid with some other variety, give 

 more promise; and of these there are striking examples 

 in Jacob Moore's Brighton and Diamond, and in some 

 of Munson's recent productions. There is promise of 

 much advantage to be gained by the gradual admix- 

 ture of dilute blood of foreign grapes into our own 

 improved types, but the results are quite as likely to 

 come from accidental admixtures as from intending 

 ones, for most plant -breeders are looking for bold and 

 emphatic results. 



All this is well illustrated in the Delaware, which 

 enjoys the distinction of being the only one of the four 

 great American grapes which gives any very strong evi- 

 dence of foreign blood. This has an obscure history, 

 and the parents, whatever they may be, are so nicely 

 blended in it that they cannot be positively distinguished. 

 It was found in a New Jersey garden about 1850. The 

 owner of the garden, Paul H. Provost, had come from 

 Switzerland, and had brought grape-vines with him. 

 This nondescript vine was at first thought to be an 

 Italian grape, then it was thought to be the Red Trami- 

 ner of the Old World. Some thought it a seedling from 

 one of the European varieties. But at the present time, 

 most authorities consider it to be a hybrid, perhaps the 

 greater number of them thinking it a cross between some 

 fox -grape and the European vine, and others, like Mun- 

 son, regarding it as a combination of the fox -grape and 

 the southern wine -grape. It is one of those fortuitous 

 riddles which nature now and then produces, the genesis 



