ftbe national nurseryman. 
FOR GROWERS AND DEALERS IN NURSERY STOCK 
* 
The National Nurseryman Publishing Co., Incorporated 
Vol. XXXI. HATBORO, PENNA., APRIL 1923 No. 4 
Synoptic History of the American Grape 
An Address By the Late II. F. HILLENMEYER Made to the Kentucky State Horticultural Society,February, 1922 
The history of the vine is closely interwoven with that 
of nlan and has oft shaped his destiny for weal or woe. 
From it was perhaps the first intoxicant, curse to Noah 
but the sacred vimbrance to all his children of redemp¬ 
tion from the deatli eternal. A Persian legend explains 
that her vine, Yitis vinifera, was a perfect and finished 
gift when man was set adrift before the Garden gate. 
A better cannot be given because the most diligent search 
of the botanist has never revealed any wildling from it 
which it might have been derived. This type in which 
we have no interest, save historically, has overspread all 
the tropics and many of the temperate zones. Long since 
it seems to have reached the limit of its perfection if the 
familiar picture, so well known to our innocent child¬ 
hood, of Joshua and Caleb jointly carrying the cluster 
from the promised land, as exhibit A, be true. But this 
type has never succeeded in the open in Kentucky or else¬ 
where, east of the western mountains. But under glass 
in this town, as perfect clusters of Black Hamburg, Chas- 
salas, Tokay, etc., have been grown as on their chosen 
heath. The severity of the climate is not the cause of our 
failure. A row of these vines in many kinds, quite 
hardy and enduring in Eastern France, where the climate 
is quite as vigorous as here, grew well for a time, but 
little by little, and one by one they passed away, just as 
did the little Indian boys. Phylloxera was not then known 
and that the loss was due thereto is improbable, because 
the roots of similar kinds, though under glass, were in 
the open and equally exposed. The development of 
American and other types extended viticulture fully as 
far north as the zone of the apple, thus making the vine 
the cosmopolitan fruit of the earth. 
“The first lisp of childhood was beneath the shelter of 
a vineclad bower, planted some years before my birth, 
and one yet endures. I was the child of a vinedresser 
on liis native heath, early to be taught American methods, 
and be enthused by the spirit of Nicholas Longworth, o! 
Cincinnati, who in the early ’40’s was, the first true 
evangel to spread a sound doctrine of the vine over the 
Ohio Valley. Pruning and consistent care were incul¬ 
cated, the quality of the fruit was faultless and the pio¬ 
neer growers made a “ten strike.” Nothing succeeds like 
success. While the demand for vines was great and 
their price became fabulous, the plantings so increased 
that by 1855 the commercial acreage in this county went 
into the hundreds. In consequence the fruit market, 
which was the early reliance, became glutted and prices 
reached the level of last year’s tobacco. Then the unprac¬ 
ticed and comparatively unknown art of wine making 
was introduced. In those days beer was not much in 
vogue. Distillate, which was cheap as dirt, was the stand¬ 
ard beverage, and strange to say the excellent wine made 
seemed to supply an intermediate want, and was regard¬ 
ed as jewelry amid hardware. Then the pendulum swung 
lo higher prices for fruit, and from 1855 to 1862 choice 
stock commanded from six to eight cents per pound, al¬ 
though then sold by measure rather than by weight. 
During all these years both growers of fruit and vint¬ 
ners made handsome profits. On May 12, 1862, the most 
devasting frost ever known overspread Central Kentucky 
and killed every vineyard and every vine not well pro¬ 
tected by its circumambience. That was at the threshold 
of our Civil War; the vineyards were not replanted and 
wine making as an occupation ceased. The introduc¬ 
tion of tobacco as a staple and remunerative crop, the ex¬ 
panding of the fine stock interests and the change from 
the individual tilling of farms to the tenant system, be¬ 
cause of the emancipation and the consequent upheavel 
in the reliable labor problem, proved a body blow, both 
to the fruit and grape growing interests, from which 
neither recovered. 
During this epoch there were but two standard varie¬ 
ties in cultivation, Catawba and Isabella, both of south¬ 
ern origin. In choice amateur collections were a few 
others, hut in the first manual, and may it be added, one 
of the most complete, published in 1846, are listed hut 
twelve native and thirty-two foreign kinds, for the con¬ 
sideration of the American grape grower. A home grown 
white grape I never had seen until quite a lad. A single 
vine “sage” was obtained in the nutmeg state at about 
the price of its weight in gold. Its growth was that of 
Jonah’s gourd, and its aspiration the top of the tallest 
sycamore in sight. In due time it bore all right, berries 
white.and clusters pigmy in comparison to those, along 
nearby fence rows. The owner of that vine complained 
of the paucity of adjectives in the three languages of 
which he had fluent command, to describe adequately its 
characteristics. And there were fakirs, in those days 
also. It was fully thirty years thereafter before Martha, 
a pure native, and as highly meritorious now as then, 
was locally introduced. 
During this time insecticides and fungicides were en¬ 
tirely unknown. Mildew was prone to attack the clus¬ 
ter when just out of bloom and, in very humid weather, 
two or three days could blight the fairest expectancy. It 
has entirely disappeared. Bird-eye rot of the half grown 
