50 MANUAL OF MODERN VITICULTURE. 



CHAPTER II. 



CHOICE OF AMERICAN VINES WITH REGARD TO 

 DESTINATION AND SITUATION. 



The vine-grower who has decided to reconstitute his vine- 

 yard with American vines has to examine different questions 

 before choosing between forms, the resistance of which he is 

 supposed to know. Is he to plant direct producers ? Is he 

 to plant graft-bearers ? And amongst either of those which 

 are the forms best adapted to his soil and climate ? We 

 shall try to solve these different problems in this chapter by 

 grouping under different headings the indications already 

 published on the principal American vines, completing them 

 when necessary. 



USE OF DIRECT PRODUCERS OR GRAFT-BEARERS. 



Since the resistance of American vines to phylloxera was 

 pointed out, in 1869, at the Congress of Beaune, by Laliman, 

 two solutions to the phylloxera problem were foreseen :. 

 First, the substitution of European by American vines ; 

 second, the grafting of European vines on American roots, 

 as Gaston Bazille so promptly advocated. 



The first solution was naturally preferred, as it seemed to 

 be much easier of execution, and vine-growers were advised 

 to adopt it. Together with the experiments of Laliman and 

 Borty (the two first importers of American vines, with a 

 view to cultivating them for direct production) the Ameri- 

 cans, who had since the failures of the London Company and 

 of the Swiss colonists of jfcew Vevey, only used indigenous 

 vines, assured us that they produced wines equal to those of 

 our best European vineyards. Encouraged by such infor- 

 mation, many vine-growers started reconstituting their 

 phylloxera-destroyed vineyards with Concord, Clinton, and 

 Jacquez (which Douysset had discovered in Texas) ; 

 Herbemontj Cunningham, which were planted extensively ;. 

 and, later on, with York Madeira, Norton's Virginia, Vialla,. 

 Eumelan, Black Defiance, Autuchon, Cornucopia, Secretary, 

 and even Taylor and Othello. . 



