ON GRAPE HYBRIDS 



By N. B. White, West Norwood, Mass. 



The chief end of every living thing is to perpetuate itself, to reproduce 

 itself, and from the standpoint of a naturalist the most perfect specimens of 

 animals and plants are found in their natural wild state, as they have come 

 down to us under the law of the survival of the fittest, and that the "razor- 

 backed hog" and the wild, seedy and skinny fruits are the most perfect speci- 

 mens of their kind. But from the standpoint of the epicure, the greater 

 amount of meat the animal has, and the greater amount of pulp the fruit has, 

 the nearer perfection they are in his estimation, and to produce more meat and 

 more pulp the agriculturist and the horticulturist are devoting their utmost 

 energy, and the future results of this energy, as regards fruits, and more 

 especially the grape, it is my purpose here to consider. 



The changed environments and the high culture tend to defeat the natural 

 tendency and aim of the vine when in its natural state and condition. Fewer 

 and smaller seeds and better quality are the chief aim of the experimenter, and 

 he rejoices over this distortion of the vine, as the insect rejoices over the 

 excrescence produced by itself having punctured the leaf. This distortion, 

 produced by changed environments, high culture, hybridizing and crossing, 

 tends to produce sterility and to destroy that life principle stored in the seed, 

 as is the case with the potato that produces no seed in Massachusetts. But a 

 cross of the Wild Rocky Mountain upon the Early Rose in Minnesota and 

 the seeds planted in Massachusetts produced seed balls, and fine, large tubers 

 the second year. 



The tomato, when introduced some fifty years ago, had many seeds and 

 but little pulp, with a large empty space in the seed cavity, but now the 

 tomato is solid and has but few seeds, and I predict that fifty years hence the 

 best tomatoes will be propagated by cuttings or slips. This same tendency 

 to sterility is observable among grapes. We have a number of seedless grapes, 

 and the writer recently produced another. Most blossoms of hybrids have 

 recurved stamens and fail to properly pollenate the stigma. When using 

 staminate vines as the male parent we get a large majority of staminate vines. 

 The writer once pollenated Black Hamburg with staminate hybrid of vulpina 

 and labrusca and eight vines, and all but one were staminate. As such 

 results are liable to occur, it may be a question as to the expediency of using 

 a staminate vine as a pollenater. Another case, where pollen from a her- 

 maphrodite blossom was used : Seven plants were obtained. Six were fertile, 

 one was staminate, and five of them worthy of cultivation. Just what the differ- 

 ence may be as regards vigor, health fulness and quality between using pollen 

 from a staminate blossom or a hermaphrodite blossom is yet to be deter- 



