274 MANUAL OF AMERICAN GRAPE-GROWING 



GRAPE HYBRIDS 



As early as 1822, Nuttall, a noted botanist, then at Harvard, 

 recommended "hybrids betwixt the European vine and those 

 of the United States which would better answer the variable 

 climates of North America/' In 1830, William Robert Prince, 



Fig. 48, fourth proprietor 

 of the then famous Linnean 

 Botanic Nursery at Flush- 

 ing, Long Island, grew 

 10,000 seedling grapes 

 " from admixture under 

 every variety of circum- 

 stance." This was prob- 

 ably the first attempt on a 

 large scale to improve the 

 native grapes by hybridiz- 

 ing, although little seems to 

 have come of it. Later, a 

 Dr. Valk, also of Flushing, 

 grew hybrids from which 

 he obtained Ada, the first 

 named hybrid, the intro- 

 duction of which started 

 hybridizers to work in all 

 parts of the country where grapes were grown. 



Soon after Valk's hybrid was sent out, E. S. Rogers, Fig. 49, 

 Salem, Massachusetts, and J. H. Ricketts, Newburgh, New 

 York, began to give viticulturists hybrids of the European 

 Vinifera and the American species which were so promising that 

 enthusiasm and speculation in grape-growing ran riot. Never 

 before nor since has grape-growing received the attention in 

 America as given during the introduction of Rogers' hybrids. 

 It was the expectation of all that we were to grow in America, 



FIG. 48. William Robert Prince. 



