98 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
berries is not recalled, but that now prevailing was so 
virulent on the two kinds then in cultivation as it is on 
them now. Leaf rust was entirely unknown and frost 
found the foliage yet ivy green. The blue bud borer was 
seatteringly found, but its larvae did not visibly mar the 
foliage, nor either by tradition or personal observation, 
was there ever such an infliction as that over Central 
Kentucky two summers since. Another insect, Pelidnota 
punctata, is mentioned, not because of material injury, 
but to show that juvenile delinquency was then as reg¬ 
nant as now. These great yellow insects were eagerly 
sought by children, not for the benefit of the vine, but 
for the hearing of a sotto voce serenade, oscillating be¬ 
tween the whir of an engine and a subdued beating of 
tin pans and then to determine whose flyer could furthest 
carry a thread attached to a limb. But then the terror 
of the grape grower was a large connected soft scale 
that invariably attached itself to the shaded side of an old 
stem or cane and quickly deadened the w 7 ood beneath. 
It was very sensitive to the sun and the universal prac¬ 
tice was to remove, during mild winter weather, the eas¬ 
ily detached outer bark. This w r as more irksome than 
present spraying which likely would not have been ef¬ 
fectual. It has entirely disappeared and an infested 
cane has not been seen in years. 
After the war came the renaissance, but it can hardly 
be said that commercial grape grow ing ever had a second 
birth. But an unbounded opportunity was embraced by 
both urban and rural dwellers, and there is hardly a 
farm, a village lot or a city yard that now has not its trel¬ 
lis of vines. In passing may it be said that on the fences 
and outbuildings of the ordinary town yard the finest 
clusters of varieties, precarious in the open, may be 
grown, because more immune from belated frost, more 
protected from vapor, wind and the smaller precipitation 
of dew in the environment of buildings. It is astonishing 
w hat a weight of fruit may be obtained where there is 
but a spot of earth and but a fleck of sunshine. When a 
vine can get its roots into the nitrogenous soil under an 
outbuilding, its fruitage will be that of an Atlas bearing 
the earth on his shoulders. In the past sixty years there 
have been but two complete failures, 1862 and 1921. 
The early vignerons had but little choice in varieties, 
but from 1870 to 1900 the floodgates w r ere opened and 
hundreds of varieties were introduced. There is nothing- 
more fascinating than their tryout, and few that have 
succeeded with the standard do not stake the new com¬ 
ers against them with certain pleasure and profit, de¬ 
pendent on their skill plus considerable “experience.” 
America has been discovered four hundred and thirty 
years; its first settlers planted vines—the vines of Eur¬ 
ope—and at the end of three hundred and fifty what had 
they accomplished? Hanging like grim death to the fet¬ 
ish that the grape of Asia w as the one for America, they 
were at least not know-nothings, but so dense they could 
not understand that the accidental finding of tw r o such 
superior seedlings opened a new 7 vision of hope in the 
face of such utter failure. About the time the forty- 
niners were trudging across the sandy Sahara to the 
Golden Gate, an humble New 7 England cottier, E. W. Bull, 
planted beneath the sod, a seed, a thing of earth that rose 
by second birth a new and nobler work ol God. He, that 
truest benefactor of our land, long rested in an unmarked 
grave, but honor to our craft that erected a memorial as 
an expression of our appreciation. His labor was a bene¬ 
faction to the vast multitudes that dwell east of the west¬ 
ern mountains, on both sides ot the great lakes and the 
St. Lawrence, thence down the Appalachian range to 
Carolina, then west on the upper border of the gulf states 
and across Arkansas and Oklahoma. Concord was not 
evolved. It sprang from the creative hand a perfect 
work, and as immediate as was the birth of Mentor from 
the mind of Minerva. Here we do not appreciate il as 
do those in that vast area where our southern derivitives 
will neither ripen nor endure the severity of the climate. 
“What fools w^e mortals be,” exclaimed a wise man. 
About 1860 Concord began to till our local markets, and 
spread, as does wildfire, over that vast area that hitherto 
had not know the glories of the empurple clusters of the 
vines. It were easy to assume that after this spectacular 
demonstration of the inherent capability of our native 
stock, the w ise men would humbly sit at the feet of this 
low ly villager and learn wisdom. But alas they did not, 
but wandered off to worship their same barren old gods. 
Betw een 1870 and 1900 not less than a thousand of these 
hyphenated Americans—the term is used to express de¬ 
rision and contempt—were turned loose on an unoffend¬ 
ing public. These mixtures of the seed, these alchemists, 
that could not make gold, were willing at least to give us 
a pot-metal imitation. The experience of three hundred 
and fifty years was totally ignored. There is no purpose 
either to depreciate or belittle such effort, but only to 
stress its utter failure. May the opinion be ventured, 
based on full fifty years of intimate contact with hybrid 
vines, that from the beginning they have been a hurl 
rather than help and that had the infinite care given by 
hundreds of hybridizers been devoted to the improve¬ 
ment of the native stock that in time we would have 
equaled the possibility of any type whatever. 
In conclusion may it be said that our state abounds in 
land suited to the vine and that we can not only raise 
all the grapes grown by our competitors, but can surpass 
them both in quality and yield. Our home markets are 
either bare or tilled from the east or west; prohibition in¬ 
stead of hampering has helped grape growing. It has 
eliminated the small wine makers but invited the power¬ 
ful wineries and grape juice interests. This opportunity 
was lost because w r e had not the grapes, but if we will 
hut pledge, as do those w 7 ho supply the canneries, the op¬ 
portunity is still knocking at our door. Consider the 
jump in prices both along the lakes and on the w est coast, 
since prohibition began. As commercial growers we 
have all the varieties needed, and with care can now as 
successfully grow Catawba as eighty years ago, and they 
cannot, for it is purely a southern grape. It results in 
the best wine to be made in America and its natural color 
pre-eminently fits it for sacramental uses. Monkey not 
with the hyphen. While a joy to the sportsman, it is a 
snare to the dollar and cent producer. Having outlived 
several generations in a multitude of kinds, their dura¬ 
bility is regarded as that of Achilles. Immortality w 7 as 
promised if he but be plunged into the saving water. 
