106 APPENDIX. 



I shall be gratified to receive letters from all persons having 

 new varieties of hardy grapes in their vicinity, describing the 

 character of the wood and leaf, color, size, and quality of the 

 fruit, etc. After importing foreign grapes for thirty years, 

 from all latitudes, I have never found one worthy of cultiva- 

 tion in open air, nor do we require them. We have native 

 grapes of superior quality, both for the table and for wine ; 

 and by raising seedlings from our best natives, and from a 

 cross between them and the best foreign, we can greatly im- 

 prove them. We have neglected our native grapes. 



Forty -five years since, I heard of a superior grape in the 

 garden of Mr. Zane, of Wheeling, found by him in a wild 

 state on Wheeling Island. I sent for cuttings, and found the 

 grape of no value. I heard of a person in Kentucky, who 

 had it, and that it proved of good quality. I obtained cut- 

 tings, and it proved to be the Vevay, or Cape (Schuylkill 

 Muscadel) grape. I am now satisfied that neither was the 

 Zane grape. I, this spring, had cuttings sent me, from a vine 

 got of Mr. Zane, some thirty years since, and which has 

 never got out of the neighborhood, and which I doubt not 

 will prove of superior quality. 



A native grape, of different aroma and flavor, and in all 

 respects equal to the Catawba, would be worth millions of 

 dollars to the nation. If my correspondents do not err, some 

 of the kinds sent me are superior. The origin of the Catawba 

 is in doubt. Major Adlum first brought it into notice, having 

 found it some twenty-five years since, in the garden of a Ger- 

 man, near Washington city. 



I received recently, an interesting letter from Mr. Alves, 

 of Henderson, Kentucky. He was born in North Carolina, 

 and says he heard of the Catawba grape in the upper part of 

 North Carolina, forty years ago, and that it was discovered 

 near the Catawba river, from which it derived its name. A 

 grape, precisely the same, is said to have been discovered in 

 a wild state, a few years since, in Pennsylvania. I have one 



