15 



culturists, hoping only that the general line 

 of the argument may be in the right direc- 

 tion. 



HOW TO SEPARATE DEFECTIVE SEEDS. 



Since writing the foregoing article, I have 

 found that about one-half the wild vine seeds, 

 which have been collected for me are "lights," 

 or dead. These may be separated from the 

 sound seeds by immersing them all together 

 in water, to which some salt has been added. 

 The "lights" will float and can be taken off 

 and thrown away. The sound seeds sink to 

 the bottom. I have, by careful count, found 

 that there is an average of four thousand 

 sound seeds to the pound; hence by careful 

 sowing the estimate of twenty pounds to the 

 acre for a nursery need not be changed. The 

 "lights" include the coffee-brown, reddish 

 and yellowish seeds, having less distinctive 

 peculiarities among the sound seeds to judge 

 varieties by. CHAS. A. WETMORE. 



Professor Hilgard on Propagation of 

 the Wild Vine. 



UNIVERSITY or CALIFORNIA, i 

 Feb. 23, 1880. J 



EDITOR MERCHANT: I have read with great 

 interest, in your issue of 20th inst., the able 

 article by Mr. C. A. Wetmore, on the propa- 

 gation of the vine, and the question of ren- 

 dering our vineyards proof against the attacks 

 of the phylloxera. Mr. Wetmore grapples 

 with the problem from a point of view which 

 has been too much neglected in the eager 

 search for a remedy of the allopathic sort, 

 that would secure the prize offered by the 

 French Government; while the study of the 

 possible causes of the exemption of certain 

 kinds, has been attempted only by the least 

 promising line of approach the microscope. 



Of the two main points upon which Mr. 

 Wetmore bases his recommendations, one, 

 viz: the resistance of wild vines, and of va- 

 rieties not far removed from them, is incon- 

 testable, and is the cornerstone of the plan 

 for the regeneration of the devastated vine- 

 yards of France, now being rapidly put into 

 practice in that country. His identification 

 of the "Zinfandels" as essentially "sylvan" 

 varieties, is most interesting and important. 

 Although the grape variety known by that 

 name^ in California is not proof against the 

 attacks of the parasite, it is certainly not as 

 susceptible as the Mission and Muscat; more- 

 over, it may itself be not altogether a pure, 

 uiihybridized stock. 



However this may be, the well-known ten- 

 dency of seedlings to revert toward the orig- 

 inal wild stock, would alone serve as a strong 



recommendation for their use in the propaga- 

 tion of vines intended to be grafted on other 

 roots. The additional point made by Mr. 

 W., that seedlings as a rule have stronger 

 and healthier roots than cuttings, and will 

 on that account alone offer greater resistance 

 to attacks of all kinds, involves a principle 

 that a priori will seem reasonable to every 

 one familiar with the business of propagation 

 of woody plants by the several possible 

 modes. 



When, in addition, we consider the possi- 

 bility that among cultivated seedlings of the 

 California vine, we are quite as likely to dis- 

 cover choice wine grafts as among those from 

 which the Norton, Taylor and Isabella were 

 selected, th*e importance of testing thoroughly 

 the behavior of the native vine of California 

 under cultivation, becomes obvious, and I 

 shall consider these experiments, now inaug- 

 urated with seed kindly supplied by Mr. Wet- 

 more, as among the most important on our 

 experimental grounds. Unfortunately, we 

 are unable to fruit any vine at Berkeley in 

 the open air; hence the question of the qual- 

 ity of fruit produced must be tested else- 

 where, by careful and reliable viticulturists 

 to whom the seedlings will ultimately be dis- 

 tributed. 



I have heretofore repeatedly urged upon 

 the afflicted wine growers of the Sonoma Val- 

 ley, the importance of using the native vine 

 as grafting stock for the vineyards of the fu- 

 ture. I can but emphasize that recommenda- 

 tion at this time, with the hope that all who 

 can will aid in carrying out in the several 

 sections of the State, the important experi- 

 ments suggested by Mr. Wetmore. 



E. W. HILGARD. 



Arpad Haraszthy on the Wild Vine, 



SAN FRANCISCO, March 3, 1880. 

 CHAS. A. WETMORE, ESQ. Dear Sir: I 

 have read with great interest an article on 

 the vine emanating from you, and published 

 in the San Francisco MERCHANT on the 20th 

 of February, with a very well executed plate 

 illustrating the differences in growth between 

 seedlings and cuttings, and also showing a 

 splendid cut of the seedling of a wild vine 

 which for so long a time hung up in my 

 office. The matter of seedlings, and es- 

 pecially of seedlings of wild vines, in view 

 of the phyollxera, is one of the greatest im- 

 portance as well as interest to all interested in 

 viticulture. And from our present knowledge, 

 based upon the unhappy experiences of our 

 French neighbors in their effort to exterminate 

 or even restrict the ravages of this insect, it 

 would seem that in view of the high cost of 



