WINE-MAKINC IN CALIFORNIA. 31 



CHAPTER III. 



PROPAGATION OF THE VINE. 



i. By Seeds. 



This may be divided into two separate parts, according to 

 the object the propagator has in view, namely: 



i. To raise new and improved varieties. 



While the raising of vines from seed with this object in 

 view is more a labor of love than of actual profit, its influ- 

 ence on grape culture has been so great, and we are already 

 so largely indebted to its zealous followers, that it can not be 

 entirely omitted here. All our fine varieties are either acci- 

 dental or carefully hybridized crossed seedlings; and there 

 would be no improvement in varieties without this. The im- 

 mense progress in American varieties within the last forty 

 years, when only half a dozen varieties were known, of which 

 the Catawba and Isabella may be considered as fair samples, 

 are due to the labors of such men as Rogers, Wylie, Camp- 

 bell, Ricketts, Miller, Rommel and Munson, who have orig- 

 inated varities for their climate and purposes more valuable 

 than our Viniferas would be, and it certainly required a long 

 line of improved seedlings to make up the long list of excel- 

 lent varities of Vinifera we now cultivate here and in Europe. 



To begin then at the beginning; choose your seed from a 

 good stock. Take a good variety which you would like to 

 improve in a certain quality, be it size or form of berry or 

 bunch, fruitfulness, time of ripening, or flavor. If a vine 

 stands next to the one you take the seeds from, which has 

 the desired quality, and which may have impregnated the 

 bloom, so much the better, your chances are so much more. 



