REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATION 81 



American blood in them. Plant breeders have a wonderful opportunity to 

 breed grapes despite the fact that more work has been done with this fruit 

 in the past hundred years than with any other. 



In conclusion let me exhort those of you who have the opportunity to 

 carry on experiments with European grapes. The work to be done is so vast 

 that we cannot make an appreciable showing unless the task be divided 

 among a number of workers. If viticulturists in the different States will but 

 concentrate on particular problems in the culture of Vitis vinifera, sifting the 

 experience and knowledge of the world in regard to them for use under our 

 conditions, it is almost certain that we can successfully grow some European 

 grapes in Eastern America. Here, it seems to me, is a splendid opportunity 

 on your part and mine to serve viticulture. 



VITICULTURE ON THE PACIFIC COAST. 



By FREDERIC T. BIOLETTI, 

 Professor of Viticulture, University of California. 



The title of this paper is misleading if it calls up visions of luscious 

 grapes bathed in the ocean spray of the Pacific. The cool summer fogs of 

 the Californian littoral art not favorable to grape-growing. The vine does not 

 fear the warm waves of the Mediterranean, but it finds a too close proximity 

 of the Japan current insalutary. A more appropriate title would be "Viticul- 

 ture on the Pacific Slope." 



This is fairly descriptive of the extreme western grape region whose 

 main body lies on low hills, narrow valleys and wide plains from the foot of 

 Mount Shasta to the Mexican border, from the foothills of the Sierras to the 

 edge of the Redwood forest that borders the coast. This body has a numer- 

 ous progeny of small descendants scattered through neighboring states. Some 

 have extended north through Oregon, Washington and Idaho almost to the 

 Canadian border, shrinking ever further eastward, to escape the humid coast 

 condition which extends ever further inland as we approach the north, but 

 stopping before they reach the regions of zero winters and stormy summers. 

 From the south they have extended to southern Nevada and Arizona and even 

 to Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Except in a few specially favored spots 

 however, they are weakly children and their precarious existence is assured 

 only by the most careful nursing and protection. 



Grape growing on the Pacific Slope differs so much from that of the 

 Eastern States, both in its material and methods, that they have little in 

 common and conclusions drawn from the experience of one region may be 

 misleading if applied to the other. A brief account of western viticulture, 

 with a discussion of the causes of the differences, may therefore be useful 

 and interesting. 



Professor L. H. Bailey in "The Evolution of Our Native Fruits," has 

 given an account of the early efforts to grow grapes in the Eastern and 

 Middle States. He has described the numerous attempts to grow the grapes 

 of Europe there and the earlier or later failure of all. It has been shown that 

 the principal cause of these failures was the extreme susceptibility of the 



