28 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the mildew and other fungoid troubles 
will not admit of growing them success¬ 
fully. Last year, as you know, was a 
very poor one for grapes, and there were 
none that could be said to succeed. The 
year previous there were some nice grapes 
on Black Hamburg, Brighton, Delaware, 
Duchess and one of Roger’s Hybrids ; 
but I don’t consider that any of them have 
made the growth this season to warrant 
us in expecting any satisfactory results. 
They all seem to die back without ripen¬ 
ing their new wood properly, and they 
are very capricious as to starting new 
growth in the spring.” 
The scuppernong has not, to my knowl¬ 
edge, been tried. The ‘‘Key” grape has 
been much spoken of at previous meet¬ 
ings, but in addition to dying back, sim¬ 
ilarly to other grapes, and ripening its 
berries very unevenly on the bunches, it 
is very inferior in quality, and not to be 
recommended for planting. The Angu- 
lata (a California grape) and Delaware 
are (from limited experience) so far the 
most promising varieties. The ancestors 
to our cultivated grapes are indigenous 
to temperate climate, and their descend¬ 
ants have all been accustomed to a resting 
season in the winter. For plants of this 
character the winters in South Florida are 
hardly cool enough for plants adapted to 
a colder climate, and it appears as if the 
introduced vines did not quite know 
whether to grow or not, throwing out 
feeble growths now and then, and not 
ripening the wood properly. 
There are frequently found vigorous 
wild vines in the hammocks that bear 
fairly good-sized bunches of very palata¬ 
ble grapes. I have, during the past two 
seasons, noted three vines that look very 
promising and are apparently immune to 
the two diseases above mentioned. In 
the interest of every grape lover in the 
state I would ask that anyone who knows 
of such vines would try to get cuttings 
and try hybridizing these with either Cali¬ 
fornia or Eastern grapes. We might, 
in this >vay, find a variety more wholly 
adapted to our climatic conditions than 
an introduced grape. I am particularly 
interested in the improvement of the grape 
by means of hybridization and crossing, 
and I would be glad to receive communi¬ 
cations from those acquainted with wild 
promiising- vines. 
In looking up the figs, I find that in 
the upper end of the county (Dade) trees 
that had been planted eight or more years 
ago had made good growth the first few 
years, but later died back, or are doing 
poorly. The cause has generally been 
ascribed to the presence of nematodes. 
While this may be the cause in some in¬ 
stances, I believe that improper treatment 
is the cause in others. In still others, 
that they are planted in an unsuitable 
location. In Miami there were young 
trees planted in 1903 that now stand 10— 
12 feet high, with a spread of ten feet, 
that last year bore well and looked very 
promising. These trees have received 
good attention. The fact that these trees 
are doing so well, and that the fig does 
well further up the state, seems to prove 
that the fault does not lie entirely with 
the nematodes, which are well distributed 
throughout the southern states where the 
fig is well established and yearly gives 
good crops. Fig culture is with us very 
much in the experimental stage, and there 
is apparently considerable difference in 
the adaptability of the different varieties. 
The fig will hardly attain commercial im¬ 
portance on the lower east coast in c®m- 
