1871 



THE POMOLOGIST AND GARDENER. 



303 



the writers, I do not not doem it my duty to com- 

 ment upon them ; but a few facts have come under 

 my own notice to which I wish to call attention, 

 with the hope to bring out corresponding facts in 

 the experience of others, and which, when properly 

 understood, may lead to a better understanding of 

 some facts, as yet, conjectural. 



A neglected vine, prostrate among the grass, 

 slightly supported by branches trimmed from an 

 adjoining apide tree, was found in September to 

 have some fine, large bunches of grapes of a delic- 

 ious flavor. Personally interested in the matter, I 

 considered this grape too valuable to sutTer it to 

 remain in such a condition. Late in the season, 

 with the aid of an experienced vine dresser, I had 

 the vine carefully taken up and transplanted to a 

 good location near the dwelling, both for shade 

 and convenience. In the following spring it grew 

 luxuriantly, making rather more new wood than to 

 me seemed customary. It spread and flowered pro- 

 fusely, was highly fragrant, but not a single fruit was 

 Been. Thus it proved year after year during my 

 stay. A knowing grape grower, declared it was a 

 male plant which would never bear fruit. But how 

 come it a male, it certainly bore fruit for years be- 

 fore, as the former owner testified. I ate fruit found 

 on it, as before stated. How came it transformed ? 

 by transplanting ? I mentioned the circumstance 

 among others, to Mr. Abel Keise, of Manor 

 Township, Lancaster County Pennsylvania. He in- 

 formed me that he experienced precisely the same 

 results, having found a vine in his fields, supposed 

 to have been carried out among chip-dirt, which also 

 bore a delicious fruit. This he carefully took up in 

 the fall and transplanted it near his dwelling, where 

 it flourished, flowered, but remained barren, a so 

 called male vine ever since. 



Seedlings often prove to be barren, I should 

 think, in my very limited personal experience. I 

 found it so in a vine raised from the seed of a raisin, 

 which flowered freely but bore no fruit. Would 

 the result be different, if the vines above referred 

 to had been transplanted early in the spring? or if 

 their roots had been pruned when transplanted ? 

 or must we look to some change in the tissues 

 brought about, by the check to a vigorous vine, 

 caused by its removal to a diflerent soil or locality. 

 I stated the same facts in an article published in 

 the '• Farm and Fireside " in April, 1867, with specu- 

 lations about the pith, pulp or parenchyma the 

 medullary sheath, &c., but I arrived to no satisfac- 

 tory conclusions. As a botanist I cannot recognize 

 seperate male and female plants in the vine family, 

 as they do not belong to monoecious or dioecious 

 orders of plants, but termed polygamous, having 

 mixed flowers, pistillate, staminateand hermaphro- 

 dite, i. e., perfect flowers, with pistils and stamens 

 (as usual in the grape), in the same flower. 



BLOOD FOK THE GRAPE VINE. 



I will mention another fact — Dr. Wm. B. Paneh- 

 stock, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, (assures me 

 that he had growing in his yard what was called a 

 male grape-vine, for many years; as bleeding was 

 then in vogue yet, one summer he poured the blood 

 drawn from his patients on the roots of this grape ; 

 and to his surprise, the following year, the vine be- 

 gan to bear good fruit, for years after. He suggest- 

 ed that bullocks blood might produce similar 

 results, and would be worthy of a trial. The same 

 diversity occurs iu strawberries, and lengthy dis- 

 cussions are on record proving, as any one can de- 

 termine, that sometimes the stamens are suppressed 

 or abortive, in others the pistils, and yet the parts 

 can be traced as rudimentally present in either 

 case. There must necessarily be a cause. 



Dr. A. P. Wylie, of Chester, South Carolina, 

 gives his experience in raising hybrid fruit, he 

 says : "In 1859, I grafted an old, wild, .^stivalis 

 grape with the[White Frontignan. The graft was put 

 in late iu the spring, consequently did not bloom 

 (it bore two branches) until late, about the time 

 that the Scuppernong or Bullace bloomed. So soon 

 as the first blooms commenced bursting, I clipped 

 them all off (those about to be blown), and then care- 

 fully cut away the stamens of all those not so far 

 advanced as to be lifting the cap ; by this means 

 preventing the possibility of self impregnation. I 

 then carefully covered the bunch with paper, so as 

 to prevent the possibility of the wind or insects 

 carrying pollen to the hybridized bunch." After 

 partial success and failure he continues : — "In the 

 spring of 1862, 1 was delighted to see all those five 

 plants blooming (from a dozen seed out of the same 

 fruit, five had come up in 1861.) Two of them 

 proved male (staminate) and three appeared to 

 have perfect hermaphrodite flowers. You may im- 

 agine my gratification at seeing those flowers pre- 

 paring to fruit. * * Two of them however 

 dropped their blooms and set[no fruit, the other set a 

 full crop, the bunches each having from twenty to 

 thirty grapes, they grew until about the size of a 

 buck-shot, and then all dropped. 



He thinks the chief defect was want of pollen. 

 He then relates his further experience and mis- 

 takes, and says, 1st, you cannot impregnate the 

 Scuppernong with pollen from any other grape, 

 either native or foreign. 2nd. You can impreg- 

 nate the foreign "Bullace" with Scuppernong pollen, 

 as he has undoubtedly establislied. 3d. That you 

 can not impregnate either Labrusca or ^stivalis 

 with Scuppernong pollen. 4th. That you can not 

 impregnate native or foreign with hybrid (Stamin- 

 ate) Scuppernong pollen, &c. He has produced 

 Clinton hybrids with Black Hamburg, White 

 Muscat of Alexandria, Syrian and others. Delaware 



