THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 313 



this purpose. It is hardy, healthy, vigorous, and fruitful, but poor in 

 quality as a table grape, not ranking above Hartford, with which it some- 

 times competes in the market though wrongfully, as it is a much later grape. 

 Ives colors long before it is ripe and is often sent to market before sufficiently 

 matured, at which stage of development it is barely edible. Even when 

 ripe it has a foxy odor objectionable to nearly all ; moreover, its flesh is tough 

 and pulpy. The bunches are compact with well-formed, jet-black grapes, 

 which make it an attractive faiit. It is easily propagated and is adapted 

 to any good grape soil. It is so rampant in growth that it is difficult to 

 manage in the vineyard. The good characters of the vine, as well as one 

 or two of the fruit, indicate that Ives might be desirable for breeding pur- 

 poses, but its special value is for the making of red wines of the claret type, 

 in which it is said to have a fine red color but a foxy taste and odor which, 

 however, improve with age. Ives is hardly as widely grown as formerly, 

 having been most popular at the time when the Catawba along the Ohio 

 River was succumbing to fungal diseases and a more healthy and productive 

 grape was wanted. It has never been very largely grown elsewhere. 



Ives was grown by Henry Ives from seed planted in 1840 in his garden 

 in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was exhibited in 1844 before the Cincinnati Horti- 

 cultural Society. Ives insisted that it came from seed of Madeira grapes 

 which had been sent him from abroad. As the variety is evidently largely, 

 if not wholly Labrusca, it has always been supposed that his Madeira 

 seedlings became accidentally mixed with a chance seedling. Because of 

 some of its characters the parentage of Ives has been variously credited to 

 Isabella, Alexander, Hartford and others, but nothing is positively kno\\-n 

 as to this phase of its origin. It was placed on the grape list in the 

 American Pomological Society fruit catalog in 1869 where it is still retained. 

 Ives was awarded in 1868 the premium offered by the Longwortli Wine 

 House of Cincinnati for the best wine grape for the United States. It is 

 still cultivated to a considerable extent although not nearly so popular as 

 forty years ago. 



Vine vigorous, hardy, healthy, productive to verj' productive. Canes long to 

 medium, of average number, thick, dark brown to reddish-brown, surface covered with 

 thin blue bloom ; nodes enlarged, slightly flattened ; intemodes short ; diaphragm thick; 



