lli- The Western Poniologist and Gardener. 1872 



its habit of throwing up sprouts all around, I last season cut down the tree, grubbed up 

 the sprouts, and trained the vine to a trellis twenty feet long. Here again the result waa* 

 not a perfect bunch of grapes. My original vine of the N. Carolina seedling, (now 

 extensively disseminated under the name of Mary Ann) has been growing for about forty 

 years. After the first six or eight years, it has been left to shift for itself, without a knife 

 touching it, except occasionally cutting away dead wood. It has now run over two plum, 

 a paw paw, a small pear tree, and is reaching for a large persimmon tree. Since its first 

 bearing, some thirty-five years ago, it has never tailed of bearing perfect fruit every sea- 

 son ; has stood almost uninjured, several cold winters, when Catawba, Elsinburg, and 

 Isabella were killed to the roots, standing only ten feet from it. The grape is better and 

 earlier than Hartford Prolific — never mildews or drops off the bunches, and will hang till 

 frost, unless birds or humans take it off. Here, on our limestone soil, mildew is the great 

 bother, especially when in June or July the season is moist or wet, and though most of 

 my grapes on stakes or trellis mildew more or less, this seedling in among the branches of 

 trees, is entirely free from that pest in all seasons. Thus my experience as an amateur 

 grape grower for half a century, plainly and forcibly convinces me that to grow our 

 American grapes on trees, is their true and normal condition, — that neither mildew nor rot 

 will affect them to the extent that it does if trained on trellis or stakes, "according to rule" 

 — that the bunches will be smaller, but the fruit of superior quality, and the only difficulty 

 of this plan will be the greater trouble of gathering the fruit, and perhaps the greater 

 depredation of birds. It appears as if this partial shade from the foliage of trees has some 

 peculiar influence in warding off the deleterious consequences of a full exposure to the 

 sun. It may be that the spores of the fungus elements of mildew may not so easily reach 

 or attach to the leaves of the vines, or the partial shade of the trees in damp, foggy morn 

 ings, may give the grape leaves time to dry before the sun strikes them. Be the cause what 

 it may, the fact remains that vines on trees are far more healthy than when confined to trellis 

 or stakes. The why or wherefore I am not well enough versed in the science of physi- 

 ology to explain. Posibly our friend J. Stauffer of Lancaster, Pa., — though he failed with 

 his application of blood to the roots of a Male Bermuda vine to make it bear fruit, might 

 be able to explain the reason why vines on trees are more healthy than on trellis ? We 

 have frequently seen statements that in Italy, they train their vines on low spreading Mul- 

 berry trees with the best success. Might it not be worth a trial in our climate ? I merely 

 throw out these hints for what they are worth — may be not worth any thing. 



Removal and Sexnallty of Grape Vines. 



Bt Georqb Haskell, Ipswich, Mass. 



Ed. Pomoloqist and Gardener: — If Mr. Stauffer supposes the mere removal of a vine 

 will change its sex, he must be mistaken. The facts he states about the removal of vines 

 and their failure afterward to bear fruit, maybe explained in several ways without resort- 

 ing to the theory he suggests. Both he and Mr. Keise may have taken up the root of 

 other vines near those which bore the fruit. Usually there are several wild vines with 

 tangled branches and distant roots in a " patch," and I have often found it impossible at 

 the season of removal, to distinguish the vine which bore the fruit I wished to save, or 

 the root from which it sprung. I have found it necessary to mark with a string or tag 

 the branch upon which the fruit was found at the time, and after the leaves were fallen, to 

 follow it to the root I wished to obtain. 



It is barely possible that the vines he speaks of, thus removed, were females, or pistilates 

 having imperfect stamens, if any, and therefore failed to fruit when removed from the 

 neighborhood of staminate vines. I have seen, however, but few pistilate vines which I 

 thought incapable of self-fertilization, and have doubts if there are any such among our 

 natives. But a large proportion of seedlings from native grapes will be infertile — having 

 no germ or pistilate organs. A smaller proportion of vines will be thus barren among 

 hybrids with the foreign vine ; (as I have recently stated in an article in the Country Oen- 

 •leman), and I have never yet seen a seedling from the foreign grape — of which 



