Edible Wild Fruits of Xew York. 



usually of a tawny color though sometimes it is grayish. The berries 

 are larger than in the other species, being three-fourths of an inch in 

 diameter. The summer grape ( Vitis cestivalis) has the lower surface 

 of the young leaves clothed with a loose, rust-colored, webby down, 

 which mostly or entirely disappears with age, leaving the lower sur- 

 face nearly or quite smooth and paler than the upper. The berries 

 are small, being about one-fourth inch in diameter. They are dark 

 blue or blackish, covered with a bloom, and pleasant to the taste. 

 The frost grape (Vitis cordifolia) has the leaves smooth or only 

 downy along the veins on the under surface, with an acute cavity at 

 the base. The berries are very small, destitute of a bloom, and gen- 

 erally with but a single seed. The river-bank grape, called also 

 frost grape ( Vitis riparia), closely resembles the preceding one, of 

 which it has been considered a mere variety by good botanists. Its 

 leaves are glabrous on the lower surface, but the cavity at the base 

 is obtuse, or rounded, the leaves are more pointed and cut-lobed, the 

 berries are suffused with a bloom and often two-seeded, and it blos- 

 soms and matures its fruit earlier in the season. 



Wild grapes were used as food by the Indians, and the fruit of the 

 fox grape is sometimes employed to this day in making grape jelly. 

 The effect of cultivation upon these grapes is known. Nearly all our 

 present cultivated varieties have been derived from them. To the fox 

 grape we owe the Concord, Catawba, Isabella, Hartford and their 

 numerous seedlings and crosses, such as Brighton, Worden and Moore's 

 Early. From the summer grape have been derived the Herbemont, 

 Cynthiana and Virginia Seedling. The river-bank grape has given us 

 the Clinton, Delaware and others. The difference in size and flavor 

 between these and some of their wild ancestors is remarkable. The 

 cultivated varieties are so superior and have now become so plentiful 

 and cheap that there is little demand for the wild fruit. Still it is not 

 probable that the capabilities and the usefulness of the wild vines are 

 yet exhausted. The late Mr. Caywood, by their aid, has originated 

 promising varieties, some of which, I believe, have not yet been given 

 to the public. The number of named varieties is already legion, and 

 there seems to be no end to the combinations that can be made by 

 crossing and recrossing these. The grape is indeed a noble fruit, a 

 classical and an historical fruit, one of God's "best gifts to men, and 

 yet man, as in other instances, has sometimes wrested it to his own 

 destruction, thus proving that the greatest blessings, by abuse, may 

 become the greatest curses. 



