124 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
handsome market fruit, the life of the 
vineyard will be reduced, and if he fails 
to prune, he will increase the costs of thin¬ 
ning, harvesting, and other vineyard op¬ 
erations and the vines will tend to over¬ 
bear and produce inferior fruit and event¬ 
ually die out anyway. 
The idea has been advanced that certain 
varieties of the type of the Carman which 
T. V. Munson of Texas produced and in¬ 
troduced as being adapted to Texas condi¬ 
tions might succeed in Florida, but are the 
climatic and soil conditions of Florida 
more like Texas than they are like Ohio 
let us say? No true Floridian would ever 
admit that! I have also noticed in the 
State press reference to certain hybrids of 
promise, but I have not been able to secure 
authentic information regarding them. 
A hybrid is an individual resulting from 
a cross between varieties representing two 
distinct species. The cross to be authen¬ 
tic should be secured under isolated condi¬ 
tions. It will require one year to make the 
cross, one year to propagate the seedling, 
three and probably four more years to 
bring it to fruitfulness. It should then be 
kept under observation for at least three 
years (better six if one wishes to be sure 
of its merit) and it must then be multi¬ 
plied before it may be sold. To our 
knowledge no one was doing such work 
for Florida ten years ago and accordingly 
no one can present such a variety to the 
trade today with any positive assurance as 
to its special adaptability for Florida. 
There is, however, an excellent chance to 
produce good grapes eventually by careful 
breeding and selection with the wild bunch 
grapes of the State, but the outlook is not 
altogether promising as these native 
grapes do not show so much merit in the 
wild as do the wild Muscadines. The 
Muscadines have already proven in the 
Government’s investigations and that of 
the Southeastern State Experiment Sta¬ 
tions to be the more amenable or the 
more subject to amelioration by breeding 
and selection. Moreover, the Muscadine 
type is more productive. It does not re¬ 
quire spraying to control disease and in¬ 
sect enemies. It is the more resistant to 
frost and freezes, and to our damp, rainy 
summer conditions. It is the distinctive 
type which does not succeed in the North 
or West. It produces distinctive fruit 
products of character. These are com¬ 
mercial assets of great importance. Cer¬ 
tainly it seems to be the commercial grape 
for North Florida. 
The bunch grapes and European grapes 
have from time to time been planted here 
and there throughout the State, but can 
any one point out plantings of them today 
which to any degree approximate in age 
the arbors of Muscadines at St. Augus¬ 
tine, which in their productive and vigor¬ 
ous old age stand as fitting symbols of the 
ancient city itself? Not only do these ar¬ 
bors of Muscadines exist at St. Augustine, 
but you may find them scattered over 
most of North Florida and here and there 
small vineyards have existed for years and 
they have proven profitable. I recall one 
of them out from Lake City which I vis¬ 
ited some years ago and found most pro¬ 
ductive. There was another near Orlando 
whose owner refused an offer from me of 
$2.00 per bushel for the crop, to use in the 
Government’s grape utilization investiga- 
) 
