220 NOMENCLATURE OP CRAPES. 



lent grape bids the fairest, next to the bull-grape, to afford a 

 good wine. 



There seems to be no end to the varieties of Vit. syfaestris, 

 or bunch grape, in size and taste of the fruit, as also in the 

 leaves. There is a middle-sized round grape, called Raccoon- 

 grape, which appears to be much of the nature of the fox- 

 grape. It is black when ripe : has much of the stingy taste 

 and rancid smell of the fox-grape, and the tough jelly pulp that 

 envelopes the seed ; the skin thick ; but it is not more than 

 half the size of the fox-grape. 



Thus it appears to me that we have in the United States 

 four species of Vitis or grape vines, viz. 



1. Vitis sylvestris, or Vit. Americana, or occidentalis, com- 

 mon bunch grape. 



2. V. vulpina, fox-grape. 



3. V. taurina, bullet-grape. 



4. V. serotina, winter-grape, by some called Bermudian 

 grape, and innumerable varieties and hybrids. 



By varieties I mean different sorts of an individual species, 

 and by hybrids, spurious offspring by intermixture of species. 

 Of the latter sort are, 



1. Alexander's or Tasker's grape.* 



2. Bland' s-grape. 



3. Raccoon-grape.* 



* I 'differ in regard to these being hybrids, they are varieties and nothing 

 more. AUTH. 



