58 



THE GRAPES OF XEW YORK. 



Soon after the production of Allen's Hybrid, E. S. Rogers of Salem, 

 Massachusetts, and J. H. Ricketts of Newburgh, New York, began to give 

 grape-growers varieties, the results of hybrids between Vitis vinifcra and 

 Vitis labrusca, so promising that for a time enthusiasm and speculation 

 ran riot. Possibly at no other period has the interest in grape-growing 

 been so keen as during the decade succeeding the introduction of these 

 h^'brids. It was the "golden era" for the grape propagators. One 

 old nurseryman tells of carrying, during this boom, over a thousand dollars 

 worth of rooted grape cuttings on his back from the nursery to the express 

 office. 



Though there was no panic among grape-growers as the result of specu- 

 lation in hybrids, lovers of grapes the country over were greatly disap- 

 pointed in the hybrid varieties. The fruit of many of the hybrids produced 

 at this time is of superior quality and many of them are still grown by 

 amateurs. But the vines of all first generation hybrids with Vinifera pro- 

 duced so far, lack hardiness, vigor and usually productiveness; they are 

 susceptible to fungi and the phylloxera and many of them must be cross- 

 pollinated to secure fruit. It is onh- when the blood of the native species 

 greatly predominates, as in Delaware, Brighton and Diamond, that we have 

 obtained sorts of commercial value through the admixture of foreign blood. 

 But the interest aroused by Allen's Hybrid still continues and in every 

 part of the country may be found some man who hybridizes grapes with 

 the hope that through well planned crosses or a lucky chance he may obtain 

 the grape of grapes for America. Such attempts, stimulated by the hybrids 

 of the fifties, have produced most of our American varieties. 



The time between 1853, the date of the introduction of the Concord, 

 and 1880 can be singled out as the period in which viticulture made its 

 great growth in eastern America. The first limit is set because the Concord 

 gave commercial grape-growing its initial impulse; the second limit is put 

 at 1880, because at about that time grapes and wine from California began 

 to compete with the eastern product to such an extent that prices fell and 

 plantings were curtailed. Curtailment did not begin so early as this in 

 New York but for the country at large the period of great expansion ended 

 at about 1880. Fortunately we have an accurate statistical report of the 



