The Grape in Kansas

UC-NRLF HOW TO GROW AND USE. AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY CALIFORNIA. THE GKAPE IN KANSAS. The oldest cultivated fruit. The finest of all table fruits. A fruit too good to be made a chief source of the degradation of the race as an alluring (yet intoxicating) principle. To the glory of Kansas, 99 per cent, of this luscious fruit which grows freely all over the state is used without fermentation. COMPILED AND EEVISED FOB THE KANSAS STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY, By WILLIAM H. BARNES, SECRETARY, State Capitol, Topeka, Kan. ISSUED BY THE STATE, 1901. Main PRESS OF W. Y. MORGAN, STATE PRINTER, TOPEKA, 1901. AGRICULTURAL LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF THE ^CALIFORNIA. PROBABLY THE OLDEST OF DOMESTICATED FRUITS. "Cyclopedia of American Horticulture," by L. H. BAILEY. It is probable that wine was made from it even before the species was brought into cultivation. It seems to have been cultivated at the dawn of history. Its product was certainly no rarity in Noah's time. Of all countries, North America is richest in species of Vitis. These species range from ocean to ocean and from the British posses- sions to the tropics. The greatest development of the native-grape industry has taken place in New York and Ohio, bordering lakes and streams. These areas are the lower Hudson river the large valley ; of the central western New York lakes the Lake Erie region ; region of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. There are also important grape interests in Ontario, Michigan, and other northern parts. There is considerable interest in grape culture in the cooler parts of Georgia and Alabama, and there are enlarging areas in the country extending from the Ozark region southward. Nearly all the country, excepting the northernmost parts, raises grapes, but in most cases the growing of them cannot be said to be extensive enough to be called an industry. Although the grape sections of the North hug the water areas, and the land, therefore, is often steep, all grape growers prefer nearly level land. The old-world are on lands plantations largely very steep ; such lands, by virtue of their warmth and drainage, are thought to give an extra quality of wine. These ideas were brought to this country, and many of our early vineyards were planted on terraced slopes. But we grow grapes for a different purpose from the Europeans, and land is cheap and labor is dear. Old-world methods cannot be followed in American commercial plantations. The ideal bunch of grapes is one which is of medium size for the variety, compact, uniformly developed and ripened thoroughly, containing no small or diseased berries, and with the bloom intact. A very dense or crowded cluster is not the most desirable, for all the berries cannot develop fully, and the cluster is not easily handled when the fruit is eaten. Unfermented grape juice is a product which deservedly is growing in popularity. The lack of secondary domestic uses of the grape is one reason for the very serious gluts in the markets. However, one year with another, the profit on a good vineyard may be expected to exceed that on the staple farm crops. (3) A *M r* f\ f\ f\ THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. ORIGIN OF AMERICAN GRAPES. From Bulletin No. 46, by Prof. J. C. WHITTEN, Horticulturist of Missouri Agricultural Experiment Station. Nearly all the cultivated grapes of the United States east of the Rocky mountains ^originated from various native species found growing wild by the early settlers of the country. Improvement of these wild grapes began by planting the seeds of the best of them and by cultivating and selecting the best of these seedlings. From the most promising of these cultivated vines seeds were again taken and planted, and so on until some of our cultivated varieties are many generations removed from the wild vine with which improvement started. As these seedling generations began to be cultivated they became more variable than the wild vines from which they descended, and improved forms appeared. Whenever a vine exhibited any particular merit it was propagated by means of cuttings, given a name, and became known as a cultivated variety. In some cases wild vines have been found possessing sufficient merit to warrant their being propagated and named as distinct varieties. Neosho and probably, also, Cynthiana and many others have been propagated directly from vines found growing wild in the woods. Improvement of our native grapes has progressed so rapidly in recent years that we now have more than 1000 named varieties in cultivation, though but few of these varieties are known to the average cultivator. Since our grapes may be grouped or classified according to the species from which they sprang, a brief description (from a horticultural rather than from a botanical standpoint) of the species represented by the varieties mentioned in this bulletin is here given. Our grapes are referred to the genus Vitis, comprising numerous species, among which the following will be considered : THE NORTHERN Fox GRAPE. Vitis labrusca Linn. Native from New Eng- to land to South Carolina and from the Alleghany mountains eastward the coast ; is not known in a wild state in the Mississippi valley ; the parent species of more than one-half of our cultivated grapes, including the Concord, Hartford, Ca- tawba, and Niagara. Distinguished from all other species by its continuous tendrils or inflorescence that is, having a tendril or flower cluster opposite each leaf; while other species have intermittent tendrils that is, two leaves each with a tendril opposite it, and then a third leaf with no such tendril. The fruit clusters of the grape occupy positions corresponding to those of the tendrils, hence, on account of this continuous arrangement, grapes of the labrusca species often bear three or more clusters of fruit in succession on the same branch, while other species bear only two clusters of fruit in succession, the third leaf having no tendril or fruit cluster opposite it. The leaves of labrusca are large, thick, and very cottony beneath, especially while young. It has, generally, very large berries and large bunches. Except when hybridized with some other species, its fruit usually has a distinct musky flavor. This species, which has produced more cultivated varieties than all other species combined, is generally regarded as occupying the most important position in the make-up of our American grapes. Its numerous varieties furnish grapes of every shade from white to red and black, of every quality from bad to good, and of various seasons, from the earliest to the latest. A single one of its varieties, Concord, is more largely planted and marketed than all other varieties, and when we include Moore's Early, Worden, Wyoming Red, and other popular sorts, it will be seen that the bulk of American grapes grown and marketed east of the Rocky mountains belong to this species. While various cultivated varieties of THE GRAPE IN KANSAS. 5 this species succeed well in Missouri, and will probably Igng continue to be important here, it should be borne in mind that they are not so capable of enduring our summers, particularly if the season be dry and hot, as are some of the species that are native to this region and to the south and west. THE RIVER BANK GRAPE. Vitia riparia Michx. This species is of wider distribution than any other native American grape, being found along the streams in southern Canada and many parts of the United States east of the Rocky mountains. It extends farthest north, and is the hardiest of our grapes. It is the parent of Clinton, Bacchus, and other well-known varieties. As these cultivated varieties indicate, its fruit is small in both bunch and berry. It may be distinguished from other species by having very thin diaphragms at the nodes of the stem, small, light green, shiny glabrous leaves, almost or quite without hairiness beneath, large stipules, and very early flowering habit. This species, with some of its cultivated varieties, has become of great importance in European vineyards by furnishing a phylloxera-proof stock upon which to graft the Euro- pean varieties. The vines of this species are rank, tall, straggling growers. They are readily propagated by means of cuttings. While grapes of this species are reasonably free from rot, they are more susceptible to the attack of leaf- hoppers than other species. During certain seasons varieties of this class have their foliage almost entirely destroyed by this insect when other species in the same vineyard are injured but little. In fact, the attacks of this insect on varieties of riparia are a serious drawback to its successful culture in this section. In the number of cultivated varieties which this species has furnished it ranks next to V. labrusca. THE ORIGINAL CONCORD GRAPE-VINE. By CHAS. E. NEWL.IN, in Indiana Farmer. I thought your readers might be interested in a little horticultural history which has been of great interest to me. Perhaps few of those who annually feast on the luscious Concord grape ever stop to think where the variety originated or when or by whom it was first cultivated. An hour's ride northwest from Boston, through historic old Cambridge and Lexington, is the quaint little, scattered town of Concord, where the first battle of the revolution was fought, April 19, 1775, though the little skirmish at Lexington on the way out here is usually given that distinction. After a walk out two miles over the fir-covered hill to Walden pond, where Thoreau's happy hours were spent in the little hut on its shores, and back to a New England dinner in Wright's tavern, built in 1747 and used ever since as a tavern (it was here the English general, Pitcairn, got drunk before the battle of Concord), I wandered out the old Lexington road past Emerson's home, where his daughter still lives, and past the Alcott home, where "Little Women" was written, and in whose door-yard, by the foot of the hill, stands the plain, un- painted "Concord school of philosophy." A little further on is "Wayside," the "House of Seven Gables" (and it has them), where Hawthorne wrote "Scarlet Letter" and where his daughter, Mrs.

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