Dr. Eitfjelmann. 



GRAPE MANUAL. 



Classification. 17 



berries probably seem too small, and they may 

 have expected better results from the larger 

 fruits of ^-Estivalis; but the experiment might 

 jet be made, and our woods might be exam- 

 ined for larger-fruited varieties, which reallj-^ 

 do occur, e. g. , along the Lakes and on 

 Niagara, near Detroit, etc. 



As has been stated above, this species has 

 been confounded with T^. Cordifob'a, to which 

 indeed, it bears a certain resemblance; but 

 the characters enumerated, especially those 

 of the diaphragms, the stipules, the form of 

 the leaf and its base, its flowering time, and 

 above all the seeds, distinguish them as well 

 &S any two species can be distinguished, even 

 if the difficulty of one and the readiness of 

 the other to grow from cuttings be not taken 

 into account. 



12. ViTis RuPESTRis, Scheele, mostly a 

 low, bushy plant, often without an}', or with 

 weak, deciduous tendrils, and not climbing,, 

 under favorable circumstances becoming 

 stouter and climbing pretty high ; branchlets 

 rounded, diaphragm thicker than in Riparia^ 

 but thinner than in other species ; leaves 

 rather small (about three inches wide), 

 broadly cordate, rarely very slightly lobed, 

 mostly broader than long, usually somewhat 

 folded together, with broad, coarse teeth, 

 and commonly with an abruptly elongated 

 point, glabrous, shining, of a very pale green 

 color ; stipules almost as large as in last 

 species, 2-2J lines long, thin ; berries small 

 or middle-sized, sweet, and in very small 

 bunches ; seeds obtuse, with a slender or 

 almost invisible raphe. 



This grape vine, of very peculiar aspect, is 

 .a native of the hilly country west of the Mis- 

 sissippi river, from the banks of the Missouri 

 to Texas, and is also found on the Cumber- 

 land river near Nashville ; its favorable local- 

 ities are gravelly banks or bars of mountain 

 streams, overflowed in spring, more rarely 

 {in Texas) on rocky plains. In Missouri it 

 is called Sand grape, in Texas often on 

 iiccount of its luscious fruit, Sugar grape ; 

 with us it flowers soon after Raparia and 

 ripens in August, and is said to make a good 

 wine. In France the V. Rupestris is used, 

 like the last species, as a grafting stock for 

 French vines ; it grows easily from cuttings, 

 iind is said to make vigorous plants, perfectly 

 resistant to the insect. 



ViTis ViNiFEKA, Linnaeus. Here would be the 

 place to introduce the grape-vine of the Old 

 World, as it is most nearly allied to tiie last enu- 

 merated species, especially to T'. lliparia. Though 

 many of its cultivated varieties bear berries as 

 large, or even larger, than those of any of our 

 American grape-vines; other cultivated forms, 

 and especially the true wine-grapes, those from 

 which the best wines are obtained, and also the 

 wild or naturalized ones, have fruit not much 



larger than that of the above named native 

 species. 



This plant, together with the wheat, belongs 

 to those earliest acquisitions of cultivation, the 

 history of which reaches beyond the most ancient 

 written records. Xot only have the sepulchres of 

 of the mummies of ancient Egypt preserved us its 

 fruit (large sized berries) and seed, but its seeds 

 have even been discovered in the lacustrian habi- 

 tations of Northern Italy. It is a mooted question 

 where to look for the native country of this plant, 

 and whether or not we owe the different varieties 

 of our present Vinifera to one or to several coun- 

 tries, and to one or to several original wild 

 species, which, by cultivation through uncounted 

 ages, and by accidental and repeated hybridiza- 

 tion, may have produced the numberless forms 

 now known. These remind us forcibly of the 

 numerous forms of our dog, which we cannot 

 trace, either, but which can scarcely be derived 

 from a single (supposed) original wild species. 

 Director Kegel, of iSt. Petersburg, ascribes them 

 to the intermingling of a few species, well known 

 in their wild state at this day. The late Prof. 

 Braun, of Berlin, suggested that they are the 

 offspring of distinct species yet found wild in 

 many parts of Southern Europe and Asia, which 

 thus he considered not the accidental offspring of 

 the cultivated plants, as is generally believed, but 

 the original parent stock. 1 may add, from my 

 own investigations, that the grape-vine which 

 inhabits the native forests of the low banks of the 

 Daimbe, "bottom-woods," as we would call 

 them, from Vienna down into Hungary, well 

 represents our T'. Cordifolia, with its stems three, 

 six and nine inches thick, and climbing on the 

 highest trees, its smooth and shining, scarcely 

 lobed leaves, and its small, black berries. On the 

 other hand, the wild grape of the thickets of the 

 hilly countries of Tuscany and Rome, with ita 

 lower growth, somewhat cottonj^ leaves, and 

 larger and more palatable fruit, which " don't 

 make a bad wine," as an Italian botanist ex- 

 pressed himself to me, reminds us, notwith- 

 standing the smaller size of the leaves, of the 

 downy forms of Biparia, perhaps of some yEsti- 

 rnUs. It was known to the ancients as Labrusca 

 a name improperly applied by science to an 

 American species, and is called by the natives to 

 this day Bnisca. The grape-vines of the coun- 

 tries south of the Caucasus Mountains, the an- 

 cient Colchis, the reputed orginal home of these 

 plants, greatly resemble the Italian plant just 

 described. 



The European Grape-vine is characterized by 

 smoothish, and, when young, shining, more or 

 less deeply, live or even seven-lobed leaves ; lobes 

 pointed and sharply toothed; seeds mostlj^ not- 

 ched at the upper end; beak elongated; raphe 

 indistinct; chalaza broad, high up the seed. 

 In some varieties the leaves and branchlets are 

 hairy and even downy when young; the seeds 

 vary considerably in thickness and length, less so 

 in the shape of the raphe. It is well known that 

 the plant grows readily from cuttings, and that 

 it ejisily .Mnd almost invariably succumbs to the 

 attacks of the Phylloxera, which, accidentally 

 introduced into France, probably with American 

 vines, has done such immense damage in that 

 country and in the rest of Europe, probably since 

 1863 (though only discovered as the virulent 

 enemj' in 1868), and is spreading more and more. 

 In California, where thus far the Vimfera has 

 been successfully cultivated, the insect also begins 



