125 



they should be condemned at once. Look out for mildew the 

 second year as well as the first, and, unless the season and lo- 

 cality are peculiarly unfavorable, reject all those that show un- 

 healthy foliage. 



Cut back the vines the following spring to two buds, and tie 

 up the shoots, as they grow, to the stakes. Some of the strong- 

 er vines may show fruit, and a single cluster may be permitted, 

 as, if it prove worthless, we wish to spend as little time on that 

 particular specimen as possible. But do not condemn hastily, 

 as the fruit of the vine often improves as it attains age. Cut 

 back one of the canes in autumn to two buds, and shorten the 

 other to three or four feet, to be layered in the spring. The 

 object of layering before we know more about the seedling is to 

 obtain vines for early fruiting, as the plants from layers will 

 often fruit before the parent vine. Seedlings will fruit in from 

 three to ten years, and any that are slow must be hurried up. 

 The treatment need not vary much from year to year, till we 

 learn what is the measure of our success. If in ten years we 

 could produce a single vine in all respects better than the Con- 

 cord, our reward would be ample. If one or more seedlings of 

 value should be obtained, the manner of pruning and training 

 them in the vineyard will be found explained on another page. 



CROSSING AND HYBRIDIZING. 



The seedlings above described are not what may properly be 

 called chance seedlings ; for we have been careful in selecting 

 good seed from a good variety. But we may do better than this, 

 there being a shorter road to success. There are numerous 

 varieties of marked excellence, now well known, that are purely 

 the result of skill in crossing and hybridizing. These terms are 

 often used indiscriminately ; but crossing properly applies to the 

 union of two varieties of the same species, while hybridizing is 

 the mixture of two species. For example, our native grape 

 ( Vitis Labrusca) and the foreign grape ( Vitis vinifera) are dis- 

 tinct species ; and it was contended till within a few years that 

 species could not be mixed. But there is no longer any doubt 

 of its entire practicability. Allen's Hybrid, Rogers' hybrids, 

 Rickett's seedlings, and many others, are the results of success- 

 ful efforts in this direction. No one pretends to doubt that 

 varieties may be crossed, and most of the so-called chance seed- 



