98 An American Fruit-Farm 



fniit after its kind. Very vigorous vines in a state 

 of nature do this. Cultivation consists in modify- 

 ing the habits of the vine. It has been said that 

 all our varieties spring by cultivation from the wild 

 vine. As a general statement this is true, but all 

 our varieties do not come from the same wild vine, 

 or directly from the wild, — but through domes- 

 tication and crossing of varieties themselves. 

 Occasionally a seedling appears having marked 

 characteristics, and so fixed as to be capable of 

 reproducing its kind. Commonly the strong ten- 

 dency in the vine is to revert to the wild. The 

 wild stock of one region of the earth differs from 

 that of another. Transplanting from region to 

 region and cross-fertilization produce varieties. 

 The Concord grape was a seedling, but the chance 

 that a seedling will develop a desirable variety 

 is remote. Only a professional experimentalist, — 

 a Burbank, — can wisely attempt the problem of 

 producing a new variety. The fruit-grower who 

 wishes grapevines which will produce each after its 

 kind, plants cuttings, not seeds, much as the or- 

 chardist sets grafted stock, not seeds of apple, 

 peach, or plum. The seed reverts to the wild, save 

 so infrequently as to make the rule practicable; 

 the cutting and the graft remain true to stock. 



The culture of the grape varies widely in different 

 countries and in different parts of the same country. 

 In the Lake Shore Valley and the Chautauqua 

 Grape Belt, the vines are set in rows, eight feet 

 apart in the row, the rows nine feet, though 



