SPECIES OF VITIS n 



grafts generally, if the ground is worked as directed for the first 

 mentioned test, will show the disease in a few -years, no matter how 

 hardy the stocks, but it can easily be ascertained by this method, 

 what stock has the greatest beneficial influence on its Vinifera top. 

 I am inclined to think that it is best in California to plant hardy 

 resistants, which are free growers, ungrafted in the field and let 

 them go without grafting for three or four years and in localities, 

 where the disease has been very destructive or if Viniferas are want- 

 ed, which are very susceptible to the disease, even longer. In post- 

 poning the grafting, the vines are not weakened with a Vinifera top, 

 while very young, as the latter is apt to weaken most any stock, 

 which will be explained later. It is possible that certain hardy 

 resistants which are slow growers, are induced to quicker growth, 

 if they receive a Vinifera top while very young, as the more quickly 

 and freely growing Riparia and Rupestris stocks have this same ef- 

 fect on their grafts. In such cases it may be advantageous if a 

 quicker growth is desired, to make cutting-grafts or graft the vines 

 in the field while they are young. . 



Species of Vitis, Valuable for Hybridizing in the Creation of New 



Grafting-Stocks. 



V. candicans or Mustang grape. This is considered the 

 hardiest of any American species and occurs according to 

 T. V. Munson, in lower as well as upper bottoms of upland ravines 

 on the "black waxy lands." Such soils are exceedingly wet while the 

 rains last, but become during a drouth exceedingly dry, much drier 

 than the more elevated, loose, gravelly soils, generally called dry. 

 In fact two of its hybrids, Champini and Elvicand (Cand. Riparia 

 Labrusca), have outlived any other vines, used as grafting stocks 

 on Mr. William Pfeffer's place in the Santa Clara Valley. 



V. cinerea. This vine has thick, fleshy roots and occurs wild 

 on rich heavy soils, although also on rich sandy soils. From it its 

 progeny, the Lenoir, has undoubtedly inherited the greater portion 

 of its wide range of adaptation. I should like to ask those, who 

 claim the Lenoir to be a pure Vinifera, how they explain its great 

 resemblence to the Cinerea in leaf and root; also, where its resist- 

 ance to Phylloxera conies from. It would be the only Vinifera pos- 

 sessing this resistance. 



V. cordifolia occurs on "the lower and higher bottoms of up- 

 land ravines." It has produced vines having the largest trunks of 

 any American species and has very thick, penetrating, highly Phyll- 

 oxera-resisting roots. The hybrids Riparia-Cordifolia-Rupestris 

 1068 and Solonis-Cordifolia-Rupestris 2024 may have some value 

 for California, but no attention must be paid to French experi- 

 menters' recommendations of vines for clays. The fact is that even 

 for our gravelly and sandy unirrigated lands we can use with safety 

 only vines which have stood the test on clays in countries with sum- 

 mer rains and only very few kinds of such. I don't think the two 

 hybrids mentioned are as well adapted to California clays as the 



