PROTECTION IN WINTER. 119 



, quality of the foreign stock. But you do more than that ; you 

 infect the native vigor of the original vine with the delicacy of 

 constitution of the foreign vine ; and accordingly it happens 

 that these hybrids, so far as my experience goes, without excep- 

 tion, require protection in the winter. Some of Mr. Rogers's 

 hybrids are hardy without protection in some places ; but I have 

 not yet seen an instance, among all my acquaintance, where 

 they have stayed out all winter without losing their wood. I 

 have to cover them. They are fine grapes and are worth the 

 trouble. But, as I have said before, in vineyard culture you 

 cannot afford, where labor is so costly, to take them down by the 

 acre and cover them up. I do not know but that it may be 

 possible, in time, to raise a grape adapted to our climate out of 

 the foreign stock, even ; and I ought to say here, that a seedling . 

 from the Black Hamburg is growing in the open air in Bel- 

 mont which has borne fruit as large and handsome, and, the 

 originator thinks, as good as the Black Hamburg. He says he 

 covers it carefully in winter, but it grows in the summer and 

 ripens its fruit — late, to be sure, but still it does ripen it. I 

 suggested to him that in a favorable season, when he got a per- 

 fectly ripened bunch and well ripened wood, that he should take 

 the seeds and put them in the ground, and so continue to try to 

 acclimatize the grape. Such a tiling seems possible, though the 

 process would be slow. I would prefer the other method of 

 dealing with our native stock, which has the vigor and adapta- 

 tion to the climate which are necessary for us in this rude North. 

 I should prefer to ameliorate that by successive reproductions 

 from seed. 



Now, of the pulp which surrounds our native grape, I will 

 say that, in my belief, it is nature's provision to secure the con- 

 tinuance of the species. It is a placenta-like substance, which 

 nourishes the seeds when, at the end of our short season, the 

 grape falls prematurely. My belief is strengthened by the fact 

 that the Concord, grown at Jacksonville, Fla., as a friend there 

 advises me, has no pulp at all, and is, to use his precise words, 

 " of exquisite quality, and more agreeable to his palate than 

 the Hamburgs which he grows." If so, then, when we shall 

 have a grape early enough to ripen in the heat of the season, 

 at a time when the climate is like that at Jacksonville, that may 

 attain that quality here. If we can ripen the grape in August, 



