THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 129 



been fruited, the present and last season, by Messrs. Hovey 

 & Co., in their greenhouse. It is a white grape, with an 

 oval and rather small berry. I do not consider it any better, 

 if as good, as the Pitmaston. 



Portuguese 3Iuscat. — A variety of the Muscat of Alexan- 

 dria ; it is more musque-flavored, and sets its fruit better. 



Propagating New Kinds from Seed. — If the trial to pro- 

 duce new sorts be persevered with in all sections of this 

 country, unquestionably, varieties will be produced that will 

 be hardy, and, at the same time, free from the hard pulp and 

 foxy flavor, that render the American sorts, in the opmion of 

 most people, inferior to the European. 



The Isabella, and generally the kinds that withstand our 

 climate in Massachusetts, blossom fourteen days earlier than 

 the Chasselas, or Early Black July. The Muscat of Alexan- 

 dria is a few days later still in flowering. To remedy this 

 difficulty, and to obtain the difierent kinds in flower at the 

 same time, resort must be had to retarding the former by 

 some process of shading, or of promoting the flowering of the 

 European sorts by protecting them with glass, or some other 

 covering, or the farina may be saved in a tin box, or glass 

 bottle, from the grapery until the vines are in bloom. I have 

 an Isabella in the grapery growing principally for the purpose 

 of impregnation, and I may, one of these days, produce 

 something new from it. This difference of the flowering calls 

 in question the accounts of seedlings having been the result of 

 a natural cross between our native sorts and foreign ones ; 

 under usual circumstances, it could not have taken place. 



" Mr. Van Mons added a remark which we do not recollect 

 to have met with in horticultural writings, that, by sowing the 

 seeds of new varieties of fruits, we may expect with much 

 greater probability to obtain other new kinds of good quality, 

 than by employing the seeds of the best old established 

 sorts." — Hort. Tour, Edinburgh, 1823. 



The Van Mons theory is, that, when the seed of a new 

 17 



