96 GRAPE CULTURE AND 



about the same as that of the Vinifera and other stocks on 

 the same soil, but uninfested by the phylloxera. 



Rapidity of Development of the Several Resistant Vines. 



That in our climate the Calif arnica develops most rapidly 

 of all, especially as to making a stock of grafting size, is 

 hardly doubtful. The experiments made at the University 

 from 1 88 1 to the present time, as well as personal experience 

 in my vineyard at Mission San Jose, fully corroborate the 

 claim that the Californica is a stock of extraordinary vigor on 

 favorable soils, and will bear very early "grafting. It wity be 

 remembered that in the first experiments made with the graft- 

 ing of seedlings at the University, in 1881, of seedlings one 

 year old about forty per cent, were found stout enough for 

 grafting, and were successfully grafted ; a thing not even re- 

 motely possible with any other species^ of vine yet tested, and 

 least of all perhaps with the Riparia, whose seedlings are of 

 exceedingly slow development. Thus, of a plantation of 

 Riparia seedlings located on exceedingly favorable soil on 

 Mr. John T. Doyle's place at Cupertino, not one could have 

 been grafted when two years old, and only a few per cent, 

 were fairly graftable w : hen four years old. 



At my own vineyard at Mission San Jose, the stocks from 

 one-year-old Californica seedlings planted in spring of 1884, 

 were without exception large enough to be grafted in spring 

 1885, despite a very unfavorable season. They were not 

 actually grafted, however, until March and April, 1886, when, 

 notwithstanding the extraordinarily dry season preceding, the 

 trunks ranged in thickness from a minimum of two-thirds of 

 .an inch to fully one and a quarter inch, and sometimes more; 

 so that two grafts could readily have been inserted in a large 

 portion of them. Of the Ripa?-ia cuttings planted at the 

 same time as the Californica seedlings, few exceeded one-half 

 inch in thickness, and very many were too slender to be 

 ^grafted with any prospect of success, especially in view of 



