GRAPE MANUAL. 



19 



EDITORS' 

 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 



TO THE 



CLASSIFICATION 



AND 



VITICULTURAL OBSERV>2s.TION S 



Upon the Native Species of American Grapes. 



BY T. V. MUNSON. 



Perhaps the first plant iioticed on the Continent 

 of North America, even before tJohimbus and be- 

 fore the Pilgrims, was the grape-vine; it gave to 

 this country the name Vineland, and later, to part 

 of it, that of Martha's Vineyard. 



And yet — said our late Dr. Geo. Engelraann* — 

 yet, the grape-vine, many forms of which grow 

 from Canada to the Rio Grande, and from Vir- 

 ginia to California, are among the least thor- 

 oughly known plants of North America. 



I have long devoted much attention to the 

 grape-vines of my home — continues the great, 

 modest botanist he ever was — but have become 

 satisfied that no satisfactory solution can be ob- 

 tained without the co-operation of the friends of 

 botany throughout the whole country. . . . 

 In order to arrive at satisfactory conclusions, it is 

 necessary — said Dr. Engelmann — to study all the 

 forms which present themselves in all their bear- 

 ings and under different conditions in which they 

 are found. 



Prof. T. V. Munson has taken up this botanical 

 investigation, which Dr. Engelmann desired and 

 pronounced to be necessary, where the latter has 

 left it, and, certainly, no other man is as well 

 qualified for the task as our friend Munson. He 

 combines the scientific preparation! with the per- 

 severance, love and devotion which its study de- 

 mands, besides the knowledge and experience of 

 the practical viticulturist and successful hybrid- 

 izer. He has studied the grape herbaria in Har- 

 vard, In the Academy of Science at Philadelphia 



* Botanical Works of the late George Engelmann, col- 

 lected for Henry i^haw, Esq., edited by William Trelease 

 and Asa Gray; p. 412. 



t Munson occupied a chair in the Sciences at the Ken- 

 tucky State Agricultural College and was honored by 

 the Government of France with the title of "ChtSvalier 

 du Merite Agricole" and the decorations of the Legion 

 of Honor. He is generally called and recognized as 

 '•Professor Munson," and is now President of the State 

 Horticultural Society of Texas, etc., etc.; ])ut he is not 

 pleased with titles and needs none; we are pleased to 

 call him simply "our friend Munson." 



and in the U. S. Department of Agriculture, as 

 well as Engelmann's collection in the Missouri 

 Botanical Garden, and has made besides his own 

 most extensive collection, mostly raised to bear- 

 ing vines from seed, through germination; and 

 has observed the vines of nearly every species in 

 their native habitat, while traveling, more than 

 fifteen years, for their examination, thousands 

 of miles in the United States. While highly ap- 

 preciating Engelmann's classification as the best 

 up to the time, yet Mr. Munson could not help 

 finding it incomplete and embodying some errors. 

 He had accumulated many facts unknown to 

 Engelmann, who wrote himself that " our species 

 vary to such a degree, that both scientific and 

 non-scientific observers have never felt satisfied 

 about them." The more our friend Munson 

 studied the species, side by side, the more he felt 

 s tisfied with his arrangement into series, as be- 

 ing the best exhibit yet made of the natural 

 affinities. And he has given the result of his re- 

 search to the U. S. Department of Agriculture in 

 a monograph on American grapes, which is to be 

 published some day ; but it has, so far, failed to 

 get the necessary appropriation. 



The entire series of colored plates, natural size, 

 made by an artist from fresh specimens, are all 

 complete — but there the work rests.* 



To publish the entire monograph with full de- 

 scriptions and illustrations is a work most woi thy 

 of the early attention of the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment of our Government, for whose treasury the 

 cost would be a mere trifle; whilst the value, the 

 benefit to be derived from this work would be in- 

 calculable. It would not merely be interesting to 

 the botanical student, but of great practical im- 

 portance, treating on the questions to what pur- 

 pose the vine can serve, whether for table fruit or 

 for wine, or for hybridizing, or as grafting stock ; 

 what climate it can endure, what diseases one 

 species may resist better than others. We wish 

 and hope that it may be published soon ; in the 

 meantime, friend Munson has permitted us to 

 present to the readers of the Bushberg Catalogue 

 a synopsis of his classification, with his own Viti- 

 cultural Observations on some of our native 

 species. (And we had some photo-engravings 

 made, reduced, after his original plates, for this 

 Grape Manual.) 



* At the World's Fair. 1893, In Chicago, Munson made 

 the most complete botanical exhibit of the genus ever 

 made, and lie presented it then to the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture to be a permanent display in the Divis- 

 ion of Pomology. 



