18 



ENOLOGICAL STUDIES. 



moderately low acid. No. 9 is Catawba in type, with a remarkably 

 high sugar and low acid. If these last have such growth character- 

 istics as to render their culture practicable they can not fail to be of 

 commercial value. 



Sugar and acid content of seedlings or unknown varieties. 



GRAPES GROWN IN VIRGINIA, 1908-1910. 



Formerly Charlottesville, Va., was a grape-growing center of con- 

 siderable importance, but the very destructive ravages of black rot 

 from 1886 to 1890, before the present methods of controlling this 

 disease were developed, among other factors resulted in greatly 

 reducing the area of grapes in cultivation. There remains, however, 

 a small but important industry which is confined chiefly to growing 

 Norton grapes for wine in the Piedmont section of Virginia. This 

 district is the natural home of the Norton, where, under careful cul- 

 tivation, it grows to a perfection seldom reached elsewhere. With 

 the exception of this variety, the grape-growing industry is of very 

 little importance in the Virginia Piedmont. During the years 1909 

 and 1910, however, samples were obtained of all of the other varieties 

 obtainable from the local wine cellars at Chariot tesville. 



The Norton is, when matured properly, such a valuable grape for 

 red wine and for grape-juice manufacture that it is worthy of a 

 thorough investigation. There is also every reason to believe that 

 most of the commonly grown American grapes can be produced in 

 the Virginia Piedmont of a quality quite equal to those of other 

 sections, but the results show that at present this is not done. How- 

 ever, in the case of the Norton the high content of sugar and the low 

 acid indicate a grape superior, in the main, to the samples of this 

 variety from other districts. 



