Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 82.djvu/347

Rh than Vitis rotundifolia. This is Vitis aestivalis, the summer grape, or, to distinguish it from the rotundifolias, the bunch grape of southern forests. The æestivalis grapes are preeminent in wine-making in eastern America. The wines from this species make the best red wines, usually of the claret and Burgundy types, to be had from American vines. A defect of these grapes is that they contain an excess of some of the necessary elements which make good wines; as color, tannin, acidity and bouquet, but these faults are easily remedied by blending. There are now a score or more well-known varieties of Vitis æstivalis, of which the best known is Norton, which probably originated with Dr. D. N. Norton, of Richmond, Virginia, in the early part of the nineteenth century. The berries of the true æstivalis grapes are too small, too destitute of pulp and too tart to make good dessert fruits. Domestication of this species has been greatly retarded by a peculiarity of the species which hinders in its propagation. Grapes are best propagated from cuttings, but this species is not easily reproduced from cuttings and the difficulty of securing good young vines has been a serious handicap in its culture.

There are two sub-species of Vitis æstivalis which promise much for American viticulture. Vitis æstivalis bourquiniana, known only under cultivation and of very doubtful botanical standing, furnishes American viticulture several valuable varieties. Chief of these is the Delaware, the introduction of which sixty years ago from the town of Delaware, Ohio, raised the standard in quality of our grapes to that of the Old World. No European grape has a richer or more delicate flavor or a more pleasing aroma than the Delaware. While a northern grape it can be grown in the south and thrives under so many different climatic and soil conditions and under all is so fruitful that, next to the Concord, it is the most popular American grape for garden, vineyard and wine-press. Without question, however, the Delaware contains a trace of European blood.

Another offshoot of this sub-species is the Herbemont, which in the south holds the same rank that the Concord has in the north. The variety is grown only south of the Ohio, where it is esteemed by all for a dessert grape and for its light red wine. It is one of the few American varieties which finds favor in France, being cultivated in southwest France as a wine grape. Its history goes back to a colony of French Huguenots in Georgia before the Revolutionary War. Very similar to the Herbemont is the Lenoir, also with a history tracing back to the French in the Carolinas or Georgia in the eighteenth century.

The other sub-species of Vitis æstivalis is Vitis aætivalis lincecumii, the post-oak grape of Texas and of the southern part of the Mississippi Valley. Recently this wild grape has been brought under domestication and from it have been bred a number of most promising varieties for hot and dry regions.