514 Select Plants for Industrial Culture and 



Vitis vinifera, C. Bauhin.* 



The Grape- Vine. Greece, Turkey, Persia, Tartary ; probably 

 also in the Himalayas. One of the most thankful of plants over 

 a wide cultural range. Praised already by Homer ; cultivated in 

 Italy as early as the bronze-age, in Armenia since Noah's time. 

 This is not the place, to discuss at length the great industrial 

 questions concerning this highly important plant, even had these 

 not already engaged the attention of a vast number of colonists for 

 many years. A large territory of West- and South -Australia, 

 also of Victoria and New South Wales stretches essentially through 

 the Vine-zone, and thus most kinds of vine can be produced here, 

 either on the lowlands or the less elevated mountains in various 

 climatic regions and in different geological formations. Among 

 the very few other plants, which passed through years of 

 drought in Central Australia [Rev. H. Kempe]. The best grapes 

 with us are produced mainly between the 30th and 38th degree of 

 latitude. Cultivation for wine advances on the Rhine to 50 north ; 

 on trellis it extends to .52 or 58 N., in Norway even to 61 17'. 

 In Italy vines are often trained high up over maples, willows and 

 elms, since Pliny's time ; in the Caucasus they sometimes grow on 

 Pterocarya. Vines attain an age of centuries and get stems 3 feet in 

 diameter. The doors of the dome of the Ravenna-Cathedral are of 

 vine- wood [Soderim]. Tozetti saw a vine with branches extending 

 diametrically, as a whole, over 3,000 feet at Montebamboli. Rezier 

 notes a plant, bearing about 4,000 bunches of grapes annually at 

 Besancjon [Regel]. A single plant of "Black Hamburg " under 

 glass at Rockhamptoii, England, bore annually 900-1,000 Ibs. of 

 grapes [Davis], A vine of enormous magnitude at Hampton- 

 Court has also gained wide celebrity. One of the largest vines in 

 the world is growing at Oys (Portugal), which covers an area of 

 5,315 feet, and the stem near the base measures over 6 feet in 

 circumference. It w r as planted in 1802, and gave in 1862 grapes 

 for 165 gallons of wine, in 1874 for 146 gallons (Journal Society 

 of Arts). A vine near Santa Barbara, California, which was 

 planted 68 years ago by a Mexican, has a stem-diameter of one 

 foot, the branches covering an area of 12,000 square feet ; it pro- 

 duces 10,000 to 12,000 Ibs. of grapes annually [H. Gardner]. 

 Another grape-vine, growing in the same district, measures 5 feet 

 10 inches in stem-circumference and has produced 4 tons of grapes 

 in a year [Meehan]. Instances are on record of bunches of grapes 

 having attained a weight of 20 Ibs. ; those of Canaan, alluded to in 

 holy scripture, must have been still heavier. In Italy the establish- 

 ing of vine-plantations on ordinary culture-land is regarded as 

 enhancing the value of the latter four or five fold, and elsewhere 

 often even more (whereas cereal-land is apt to deteriorate), pro- 

 vided that vine-diseases can be kept off. The imports of wine into 

 the United Kingdom in 1886 amounted to about 15 million gallons, 

 worth more than 5,000,000, of which only a very small proportion 

 came from British colonies. The wine imported into Victoria in 1887 

 was valued at 128,000, that exported at 29.000. In 1885 T 



