THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 5 



this species succeed well in Missouri, and will probably Igng continue to be im- 

 portant here, it should be borne in mind that they are not so capable of enduring 

 our summers, particularly if the season be dry and hot, as are some of the species 

 that are native to this region and to the south and west. 



THE RIVER BANK GRAPE. Vitia riparia Michx. This species is of wider 

 distribution than any other native American grape, being found along the 

 streams in southern Canada and many parts of the United States east of the 

 Rocky mountains. It extends farthest north, and is the hardiest of our grapes. 

 It is the parent of Clinton, Bacchus, and other well-known varieties. As these 

 cultivated varieties indicate, its fruit is small in both bunch and berry. It may 

 be distinguished from other species by having very thin diaphragms at the nodes 

 of the stem, small, light green, shiny glabrous leaves, almost or quite without 

 hairiness beneath, large stipules, and very early flowering habit. This species, 

 with some of its cultivated varieties, has become of great importance in European 

 vineyards by furnishing a phylloxera-proof stock upon which to graft the Euro- 

 pean varieties. The vines of this species are rank, tall, straggling growers. 

 They are readily propagated by means of cuttings. While grapes of this species 

 are reasonably free from rot, they are more susceptible to the attack of leaf- 

 hoppers than other species. During certain seasons varieties of this class have 

 their foliage almost entirely destroyed by this insect when other species in the 

 same vineyard are injured but little. In fact, the attacks of this insect on varie- 

 ties of riparia are a serious drawback to its successful culture in this section. 

 In the number of cultivated varieties which this species has furnished it ranks 

 next to V. labrusca. 



THE ORIGINAL CONCORD GRAPE-VINE. 



By CHAS. E. NEWL.IN, in Indiana Farmer. 



I thought your readers might be interested in a little horticultural history 

 which has been of great interest to me. Perhaps few of those who annually feast 

 on the luscious Concord grape ever stop to think where the variety originated or 

 when or by whom it was first cultivated. An hour's ride northwest from Boston, 

 through historic old Cambridge and Lexington, is the quaint little, scattered town 

 of Concord, where the first battle of the revolution was fought, April 19, 1775, 

 though the little skirmish at Lexington on the way out here is usually given that 

 distinction. After a walk out two miles over the fir-covered hill to Walden pond, 

 where Thoreau's happy hours were spent in the little hut on its shores, and back 

 to a New England dinner in Wright's tavern, built in 1747 and used ever since as 

 a tavern (it was here the English general, Pitcairn, got drunk before the battle 

 of Concord), I wandered out the old Lexington road past Emerson's home, where 

 his daughter still lives, and past the Alcott home, where "Little Women" was 

 written, and in whose door-yard, by the foot of the hill, stands the plain, un- 

 painted "Concord school of philosophy." 



A little further on is "Wayside," the "House of Seven Gables" (and it has 

 them), where Hawthorne wrote "Scarlet Letter" and where his daughter, Mrs. 

 Lothrop, still lives. Next door to this historic house stands Bull's cottage, in 

 whose door-yard still grows the first Concord grape-vine, from which stock the 

 unnumbered millions of vines of this variety came. [See frontispiece to this book.] 

 The vine is now enclosed in close latticework, around and above, to keep vandal 

 relic-hunters, like myself, from carrying it away by inches. On one side hangs a 

 square oak board on which these words are burned most artistically : 



" I looked about to see what I could find among our wildings. The next thing 

 to do was to find the best and earliest grape, for seed, and this I found in an ac- 



