2 BUSHBERG CATALOGUE. 
Thus the climate, the mean temperature as 
well as the extremes, the length of the growing 
season, the relative amount of rain, the ameli- 
de as well as the soil, BBYe an almost in- 
credible influence on vari of grapes; 
and a judicious choice of locations adapted to 
the grape, and of varieties adapted to our loca- 
tion, _ climate and soil, is therefore of the first 
importance. 
ana this has been and is even now 
but insufficiently understood. Indigenous wild 
mans first discovered this country ‘“ Hleif Eric- 
son” called the land Wineland. As early as 
1564 wine was made by the first colonists from 
the native grape in Florida. 
made in America from native grapes, and men- 
tion of it is found—(the French settlers near 
Kaskaskia, Ill., made, in 1769, one hundred and 
ten hogsheads of strong wine from wild grapes) 
—‘‘but neither the quality of the wine nor the 
price obtained for it offered sufficient induce- 
ment to persevere.” — Buchanan. 
The European grape, Vitis Vinifera, was, 
therefore, considered the only true wine grape. 
A London Company sent, in 1630 French vigne- 
rons into the Virginia Colony to plant grape- 
vines which they had imported for the purpose; 
the poor vignerons were blamed for their fail- 
ure. In 1633 Wm. Penn tried to introduce and 
cultivate European varieties in Pennsylvania, in 
vain. In 1690 a Swiss Colony, grape growers 
from the Lake of Geneva, tried to raise grapes 
make wine in Jessamine Co., Ky., but their 
hopes were soon frustrated, their labor and 
fund—$10,000, a large amount in those days— 
were lost; and only when they commenced to 
cultivate an indigenous grape, which they how- 
ever supposed to be from the 
imported, but they all perished ‘from the vicis- 
situdes of the climate.” Thousands of failures 
are recorded; not one of durable success; and 
Downing was send justified in saying: (Horti- 
culturist, Jan. 1851) ‘The introduction of the 
foreign grape in this country for open vineyard 
culture is impossible. Thousands of individuals 
have tried it—the result in every case has been 
€ same; a season or two of promise, then 
utter failure.” (Always excepting California, 
which was then almost unknown, but which is 
now the greatest he dit State of this 
country. All our remarks on grape culture 
refer only to the Staten east ots the Rocky Moun- 
tains 
While this fact could not be denied, the cause 
remained a mystery. All pronounced the Eu- 
ropean grape as ‘‘ unsuited to our soil and cli- 
mate ;” all attributed its failure to that cause. 
But we, and doubtless many others with us, 
could not help thinking that ‘soil and climate” 
cannot be the sole causes; for this vast country 
of ours possesses a great many locations where 
soil and climate are quite similar to that of some 
parts of Europe at least, where the Vinifera 
flourishes ; is it then reasonable to suppose that 
none of the many varieties which are grown in 
Europe under so varied climatic conditions, 
from Mainz to Naples, from the Danube to the 
Rhone, should find a congenial spot in these 
United States, embracing almost every climate 
of the temperate zone? If soil and climate were 
so unsuited, how is it that the young, tender 
fact that the finest European varieties of other 
fruits, the pear for instance, are successfully 
grown here, and that, but for the curculio, the 
Reine Claude and German Prunes would flour- 
ish here as well as there? Slight differences of 
soil and climate might well produce marked dif- 
ferences in the constitution of the vine, perh 
also somewhat in the flavor and quality of the 
grapes, but could not sufficiently account for 
their absolute failure. Nevertheless our learned 
Horticulturists looked for no other cause, they 
went even so far as to teach that “if we really 
wished to acclimate the foreign grape here, we 
must go to the seeds and raise two or three new 
generations in the American soil and climate.” 
In obedience to these teachings numerous fruit- 
less attempts have been made to raise here seed- 
lings of the European grape that will endure our 
climate. Like their parents, they seemed suc- 
cessful for a time*—to be soon discarded and 
?amon the seedlings oF mireien: grapes, raised in the 
Ld ps ich Pn aname an aie: Brinkle and 
aig F Raabe of: Fhiladelphin; Brandy- 
aed 
