584 



POSSIBILITIES OF OUR NATIVE GRAPES. 



19 Merrimac 



3 Massasoit 



28 Requa 



53 Salem Lab. ■ Hamburg. 



4 Wilder " 



By using some of these fine varieties, such as Her- 

 bert, Salem, Agawam, etc., to give size and richness of 

 flavor to other of our best species and varieties, doubt- 

 less very valuable results may be obtained, as indicated 

 in my own efTorts with Lindley hybrids, as follows : 



Brilliant Lindley ■ Delaware. 



Gold Dust 



Golden Grain " " 



Linelva " < Elvira. 



Linherb ' ■ " X Herbemont. 



Lindel " < Delaware. 



Linmar " ■ Martha. 



Opal 



Red Bird. (Promises to be very valuable 



for early market) " Champion. 



Ruslter " Concord. 



The Brilliant, to most tastes, is finer than Delaware, 

 as having a more fruity flavor, and is otherwise pure and 

 sprightly. It is very handsome, and promises to be 

 valuable over a large territory, especially where Dela- 

 ware succeeds. 



A vast number of other pure and hybrid Labruscas 

 not mentioned in this paper have been produced. 

 Comparing this species with others which are much 

 superior, and its numerous varieties and hybrids with 

 the few varieties of better species, it would seem that a 

 great waste of time has been made. 



We have been trying to clothe the entire country 

 with vines from the New England slopes, while the othPj. 

 slopes of the country offer better material for the con- 

 struction of vmeyards for those 

 regions. Let every section do 

 with its own material for itself 

 as well as have the eastern and 

 central states done for them- '^■^feiJt^ 

 selves, and our country will be- m^^^tMj^tiijM'^^^ 

 come a great grape country 

 throughout. 



The Southern .-estivalis 

 Class [I'itis Boiuqiiiiiiana). — No 

 other class offers so many really 

 fine varieties for the south and 

 southwest as this, considering the 

 number in cultivation. Though 

 this family of grapes has been 



considered by Dr. Engelmann and SSR^/sJ! 

 other Amphelographers as na- 

 tives of the southern states, yet 

 most diligent search after their 

 origin, by the writer, has sig- 

 nally failed to find any indica- 

 tions that they are native, as no 



such wild vines havebeen t- 



FlG 



brought to his notice from any 

 of the many places where it was reported they occur, 

 and search was instituted. The Herbemont as " Brown 

 French," and Le Noir or Jacques as "Blue French " 



he has traced back through the Bourquin family 

 of Savannah, Ga., to their bringing to Georgia in 

 its early settlement over 150 years ago from south 

 France. The Louisiana was reported by the French in 

 Louisiana near New Orleans, among whom it was first 

 known in this country to have been imported from south 

 F'rance many years ago, probably in last century. These 

 original varieties of the group bear French or Spanish 

 names, almost invariably. So we cannot avoid the con- 

 clusion that these are varieties of some foreign species 

 nearly allied to, but yet not identical with aestivalis. 

 Where the wild home of the species is or was is not 

 known to writers on the grape, but I am led to believe 

 it was the original wild species along the borders of the 

 Mediterranean, while vinifera came from further east, 

 in Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, etc. 



There is this remarkable difference, that this resists 

 phylloxera and most of our grape diseases in the south 

 where vinifera is destroyed. In honor of Gougie Bour- 

 quin, who so well assisted me to trace out the origin, in 

 this country, of Herbemont and Le Noir, I named the 

 group as a new species, Boiirqiiiniana, as V. cesdvalis, 

 to which it has been heretofore attached, it is not. It 

 is about mid-way between that and vinifera, with some 

 characteristics of V. cinerea, and certainly offers one of 

 the most valuable strains of blood with which to im- 

 prove our southern species with at least a fair proba- 

 bility that the blood of this same species is that which 

 gives fineness to the Delaware. Fig. i shows a seedling 

 of Herbemont which I have called Onderdonk. It is a 

 white grape of promise, with small berries but a large 



2. Hermann J.eger. (See page 585. 



cluster. Ttiere are many good new varieties of this 

 species. 



The True ^stivalis Class {Iritis cestivalis) has a more 



