NOMENCLATURE OF GRAPES. 69 



this highly intelligent professor found great difficulties in this 

 task, arising from the innumerable varieties, possessing slight 

 shades of difference in one point or another, with which the 

 whole territory of France abounds. 



In the year 1802, the catalogue of the Luxembourg col- 

 lection presented two hundred and sixty-seven sorts, arranged 

 under the following heads : No. I, vines with black oval fruits, 

 thirty-seven sorts ; No. 2, black round fruits, ninety-eight 

 sorts ; No. 3, white oval fruits, forty-four sorts ; No. 4, white 

 round fruits, seventy-three sorts ; No. 5, gray or violet oval 

 fruits, five sorts ; No. 6, gray or violet round fruits, ten sorts ; 

 in all two hundred and sixty-seven varieties, which was after- 

 wards increased to more than double that number. 



It must be a subject of great regret to every lover of hor- 

 ticulture, that this noble establishment has been abandoned 

 and broken up by the French government, as it possessed, 

 when fostered by national power, a degree of permanency 

 scarcely to be looked for in individual establishments. 



A most elaborate descriptive list of the varieties of the 

 grape is contained in a Spanish work entitled, " Ensayo sobre 

 las variedades de la vid commun, qui vegetan en Andalusia, 

 &c." by D. Simon Roxas Clemente, librarian to the Madrid 

 Botanic Garden. This author founds his distinctions of vari- 

 eties on the character of the stern, shoots, leaves, flowers, 

 clusters, and berries. He describes one hundred and twenty 

 varieties, comprising them under two sections, the downy and 

 smooth-leaved. 



The most extensive catalogue of grapes at present culti- 

 vated in any one collection, in France, contains two hundred 

 and seventy-seven varieties, all properly arranged as to colour, 

 form, &tc. besides which the same proprietor has many which 

 are not yet so regulated. Notwithstanding, however, all the 

 exertions that have been made, and the studious application of 

 many of the most eminent French horticulturists to this inte- 

 resting subject, great uncertainty still exists in the nomencla- 

 ture of many varieties of the grape, and in their observations 

 already made, it was found that often the same kind was called 



