GRAPE VARIETIES 337 



ceptibility to disease. I have never known it 

 to be grown in commercial quantities, but for 

 the amateur who is willing to devote especial 

 care to the vines it is a fine sort. The fruit 

 ranks with the best of the Old-World sorts — 

 and is almost as difficult to grow. The bunch 

 and berry are both large and of a pleasing 

 red color, ripening after Concord and keeping 

 very late. In the North the seasons are not long 

 enough to ripen this variety properly, but in 

 the latitude of central Indiana it usually 

 matures before severe frosts. Farther south it 

 is still more certain to produce a crop, and 

 sometimes the vines overbear and the fruit is 

 small as a result. 



Herbert 



Of all the Rogers' hybrids that it has been 

 my pleasure to grow or to taste, the Herbert is 

 the best of the lot. It is a large black grape 

 closely resembling the Black Hamburg — one of 

 its parents. Herbert is more vigorous than the 

 Concord and when planted beside that variety 

 outgrew it and produced more fruit to the vine. 

 A few years later, however, its faults began 

 to show up and in one severe winter we lost 

 about fifty out of one hundred and fifty vines 

 that we had planted. As the vines grew older 

 they also became much more subject to black 

 rot until now we have great difficulty in obtain- 



