BOOK I. 



GRAPE-VINE. 



751 



" wine is a more grateful and efficacious cordial than can be furnished from the whole 

 class of aromatics." 



4797. Varieties. These are exceedingly numerous; partly from the antiquity of the 

 vine, it having, as Professor Martyn remarks, been cultivated from the time of Noah ; 

 partly from the influence of soils and climates in changing the qualities of grapes, there 

 being hardly two vineyards in France or Italy where the sorts, though originally the 

 same, remain long precisely alike ; but chiefly, as far as respects this country at least, 

 from the facility with which new sorts are procured from seed. Tusser, in 1560, men- 

 tions only " white and red" grapes. Parkinson, who was more of a horticulturist, 

 gives, in 1627, a list of twenty-three sorts, including the white muscadine, " very great, 

 sweet, and firm ; some of the bunches have weighed six pounds, and some of the berries 

 half an ounce." Ray, in 1688, enumerates twelve sorts as then most in request. Rea, 

 in 1702, gives most of those in Ray's list, and adds five more sorts, recommending the 

 red, white, and the d'Arbois, or royal muscadine, the Frontignacs, and the blood-red, 

 as the fittest sorts for England. The best vines, he says, were tlrun on the walls of the 

 physic-garden at Oxford. 



4798. Suritxer, in 1717, says, " It is to Lord Capel and Sir William Temple that we are owing that col- 

 lection of good grapes now sO plenty in England; the latter," he says, " brought over the Chasselas, 

 parsley, and Frontignac ; and also the Amboyna, Burgundy, black muscat, and grizzly Frontignac ; all 

 highly approved, and distributed amongst the nurserymen, as well as the nobility and gentry. The best 

 grapes," he tells us, " were grown at Twickenham, Isleworth, and Richmond." Speedily, from 1760 to 

 1790, excelled in the culture of the vine at Welbeck. 



4799. The most valuable modern additions to the varieties of grapes in this country have been procured 

 by sowing the seeds of sorts ripened in this country. That excellent grape, the red Hamburgh, was raised 

 from seed, about a century ago, by Warner, of Rotherhithe, already mentioned. Millui in the same way 

 produced the variety of the black cluster, which bears his name. Speedily produced various new sorts, 

 which have now a place in the catalogues of nurserymen. Williams of Pitmaston, Braddick of Thames 

 Ditton, and, above all, the President of the Horticultural Society, have raised several excellent varieties 

 of the sweetwater, Chasselas, and Hamburgh grapes. The great attention paid to natural history by such 

 as go abroad, has also contributed to the number of grapes. New sorts have been sent from Spain, Italy, 

 and the East Indies, and many from France ; so that the lists of some British nurserymen exceed two 

 hundred and fifty names. In France, during the consulship, in 1801, the celebrated chemist, Chaptal, 

 when minister of the interior, ordered a specimen of every known variety of the grape to be collected 

 from the different departments where the vine is grown, and planted in the nursery of the Luxemburg 

 garden, with a view to ascertain their respective merits. Though this assortment was nerer completed, 

 the number collected amounted to upwards of three hundred distinct varieties. 



4800. A classification of the numerous varieties of the vine has not yet been made, either in France or 

 England. Bosc, the inspector of government-nurseries in France, was employed to compare and class 

 those collected at the Luxemburg ; but in 1809 he had only succeeded in describing and figuring fifty dis- 

 tinct sorts. The groundwork of his classification was, the color, form, and size of the fruit ; the surface, 

 margin, texture, color, and position of the leaves ; and the redness, greenness, or variegation of the 

 foot-stalks. From these eleven characteristics combined, he forms 156 classes, in which, he says, may be 

 placed all the possible varieties of grapes. Bosc, aware of the great variety of considerations of another 

 order, which augment the number of characteristics, such as grapes which are in other respects alike, 

 yet differ in their time of ripening, in the time they will hang without alteration on the plant, in the 

 quantity produced on a plant, quality of the pulp, &c. acknowledges, that, after four years' labor, he could 

 offer no useful result. In the catalogue of the Luxemburg collection, published by Hervey in 1802, the 

 arrangement is, 1. vines with black oval fruits , 37 sorts ; 2. black round fruits, 98 sorts ; 3. white oval' 

 fruits, 44 sorts ; 4. white round fruits, 73 sorts ; 5. grey or violet oval fruits, 5 sorts ; and 6. grey or violet 

 round fruits, 10 sorts : in all, 267 sorts. The most elaborate descriptions of the varieties of the vine 

 which have yet appeared are contained in a Spanish work, Ensayo sobre las varicdadcs de la vid co- 

 mun, que veeetan en Andalusia, &c. by D. Simon Roxas Clemente, librarian to the botanic garden at 

 Madrid. Tnis author founds his varieties on the character of the stem, shoots, leaves, flowers, bunches, 

 and berries. He describes 120 varieties, comprising them in two sections, downy and smooth-leaved. Each 

 section is arranged in tribes or clusters of subvarieties, bearing one common name, and distinguished by 

 a common character in some of the parts of the fundamental characteristics above named, and into isolated 

 varieties, which he describes singly. He enumerates thirty-six authors who have written on the vine, 

 since Columella, by whose names he has distinguished many of his tribes ; the others by their local ap- 

 pellations. The table of grape-vines here given is, we acknowledge, very imperfect, but it contains all 

 the information which we have been able to embody from the best authors, and especially from Speechly 

 and Forsyth. More than triple the names it contains might have been inserted ; but, without being 

 accompanied by any descriptive particulars, they could be of no real use. 



4801. Estimate of sorts. As it is generally a puzzling consideration for inexperienced persons to make 

 a selection from the ample semi-descriptive catalogues of authors and long lists of names kept by nursery- 

 men, we shall here submit a few selections suitable to common cases. 



Vines to 



to plant against a common ^arden- 

 of south exposure, or against the 

 malls of a house. The July black, 

 white muscadine, white and black 

 sweetwater, small and large black and 

 white cluster, black esperione, &c. 



To plant a vinery for early fbrcing. 

 Take the preceding sorts. 



To plant a vinery for a full crop of good 

 grapes of various Jlavors. Take a 

 white and red, or black muscadine, 

 a white and red muscat, a white and 

 a red Frontignac, a black or red mus- 

 cadel, a white raisin-grape, a white 

 and red Hamburgh, a Sitwell's and 

 red sweetwater, a white and red 

 Nice. 



There are here 26 grapes of 1 4 clistinc t 

 flavors; an equal number of both co- 

 lors ; large showy bunches and berries, 

 as those of the Nice ; and small high- 

 flavored ones, as those of the Fron- 

 tignacs ; the whole placed in the order 



