32 Planting. 



BUSHBERG CATALOGUE. 



Grafting. 



ferred by many, but unprejudiced and observ- 

 ing cultivators have found that they only look 

 stronger and finer, but are not as goo./ as plants 

 properly grown from cuttings or single-eyes, of 

 mature, healthy wood. The disposition to ra- 

 pidly multiply the new varieties of grapes has 

 led to the production of vast numbers of vines 

 from summer layers, or, still worse, from 

 green cuttings. The plants so produced usually 

 prove a disappointment to the planter, and 

 injure the reputation of new varieties. 



Our German and French vine-dressers gene- 

 rally practiced growing vines from long cut- 

 tings, but short (two or three eyej cuttings will 

 usually make stronger and better ripened roots. 

 Others again have obtained the best results 

 from single-eye plants, and consequently pre- 

 fer them. The celebrated French ampelograph 

 Dr. Jules Guyot praised single-eye cuttings as 

 physically and physiologically most approach- 

 ing to those raised from seed. We have tried 

 all, and find that it makes very little difference 

 how the vine has been produced and raised, 

 provided it has strong, firm, healthy, well- 

 ripened roots, and wood, with plump and per- 

 fect buds. (We never found any grown from 

 green or unhealthy wood that had them.) As 

 a general rule, a well grown vine is in its best 

 condition for planting when one year old. 

 Fuller and some other good authorities prefer 

 two-year old transplanted vines ; vines older 

 than two years should not be planted, and so- 

 called extra large layers " for immediate bear- 

 ing" are a humbug. 



There is, however, one method of propagat- 

 ing the grape, namely, by GRAFTS, which be- 

 longs more properly to the sphere of the culti- 

 vator, the vineyardist, than the nurseryman 

 or propagator, and which presents itself under 

 aspects almost entirely new. 



GRAFTING. 



Grafting the grape-vine is now practiced on 

 a gigantic scale in Europe, where the contin- 

 ued inroads of the Phylloxera have carried 

 devastation and destruction over an immense 

 area of vineyards, once thrifty and blooming. 

 Many methods have been tried ; untold sums 

 of money have been expended in vain attempts 

 to check the march of this terrible enemy of 

 the European grape; but, alas ! these attempts 

 have practically proved to be failures. By the 

 application and continued use of chemical in- 

 secticides some vineyards have been kept up 

 in a state of comparative health and produc- 

 tiveness ; but, unfortunately, the cost of these 

 annual applications is too high for general use, 

 and can only be afforded by the proprietors of 



the most renowned vineyards, the "grand 

 crus," whose products command such extraor- 

 dinary prices as to cover the extraordinary 

 expenses of preserving them by this means. 

 Vineyards which can be entirely submerged 

 in water every winter, for a period of at least 

 fifty days, can also be maintained in spite of the 

 Phylloxera. And, finally, vines planted in soil 

 containing at least 60 per cent, of pure sand 

 (silica) offer also a comparative resistance to 

 the insect. 



These three means of maintaining the Euro- 

 pean grape in spite of the Phylloxera apply 

 themselves only in such exceptional cases, how- 

 ever, that European grape culture would be 

 doomed to an almost entire destruction were 

 it not for the American vine coming to the aid 

 of its European sister. The American vine, 

 with its strong, robust system, and its tough, 

 vigorous root, resists the Phylloxera, and by 

 lending its root to the European vine makes 

 the reconstruction of the devastated vineyards 

 possible. 



When the last edition of our catalogue was 

 published (1875) this matter was stil a problem, 

 and many then doubted whether the solution, 

 p< tsitively and practically, would be a satisfac- 

 tory one. To-day this problem is solved, and 

 it is placed beyond all doubt that the use of the 

 American resistant vine as a grafting stock for 

 the European grape (V. Vinifera) is the true 

 solution of the Phylloxera question for the Eu- 

 ropean vintner that solution which. alone has 

 so far been found generally applicable, gener- 

 ally practical, and generally satisfactory. 



Millions upon millions of vines are now 

 grafted in Europe every spring, some on simple 

 cuttings, some on nursery plants, and others 

 in vineyard plantations ; but in all cases the 

 grafting stock is of American descent. The 

 stocks most generally employed for this pur- 

 pose are types of our wild Vitis Riparia, 

 which probably constitutes four-fifths of the 

 grafting stocks now employed, having been 

 found to adapt themselves to nearly all kinds 

 of soils and exposures, and uniting the greatest 

 powers of resistance to the insect with a re- 

 markable facility of rooting from cuttings and 

 of receiving the graft of the V. Vinifera. 



We will be pardoned for mentioning here 

 with a certain degree of pride and satisfaction, 

 that we were the first to recommend and to 

 bring this valuable grafting stock to the notice 

 of the French grape-growers (in Dec., 1875) and 

 to place it in their hands in sufficient quanti- 

 ties to test its merits, which merits they soon 

 learned to appreciate. Since then the French 

 vintners have propagated and increased the 

 stock in a wonderful degree, and last winter 



