Foundations of American Grape Culture (Classic Reprint)

Book excerpt: Excerpt from Foundations of American Grape Culture In the fall of 1873, the writer visited the vineyards of Dr. Robert Peter, residing near Lexington, Kentucky. In these vineyards were all the leading and nearly all the then introduced varieties of American grapes. The vines were bearing generally, and the fruit on nearly all was ripe or ripening. The Doctor, having been my instructor in Chemistry in Kentucky State Agricultural College, in which I had completed the scientific course in 1870, discoursed freely upon the character of vine and fruit of the varieties. It seemed to me that there might be numerous combinations, which would naturally occur in such a vineyard, and that one could expect some of the seedlings grown from such crossed seeds to turn out better than any in the vineyard, by combination of excellencies of both parents in the crossed. This re ection aroused within me a strong desire to test the matter. The Doctor gave me clusters of all wished, some thirty or forty kinds. The seeds of these were carefully saved, separately labeled, and noted as to varieties standing near the vine which bore the seeds. These seeds were planted at my new home in Nebraska, but the season and other conditions being adverse, all were lost, yet the kindled ame of passion for experimentation continued to burn. The timbered belts along the streams of that bleak country were ransacked for the few wild grapes growing there, and the vines bearing the best fruit were marked to be removed to vineyard and later hybridized with larger berried kinds, as the only species there (v. 'vulpina) has small berries, although often quite sweet, and pure-in quality. However, a series of years of adversity - with drouth, intensely hard winters, and grasshoppers, - coming on, further experimentation there in that line was dropped. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."