Results of Grape-breeding
There are now 2000 or more varieties of grapes of American origin, all produced within approximately a century. It is doubtful whether any other cultivated plant at any time in the history of the world has attained such importance in so short a time from the wild state as American grapes. It would seem that almost every possible combination between species worth considering has been made. Through hybridization, species and varieties have become so mixed that the grape-breeder cannot now work intelligently with these gross forms and must work with characters rather than with species and varieties which are but combinations of characters. Great progress, it is true, has been made in the past in breeding grapes in America, but the work has been wholly empirical and extremely wasteful. Many varieties have been called, but few have been chosen. With the new knowledge of breeding and with the experience of past workers, progress should be made with greater certainty. From what has been done and from work now under way, it is not too much to say that we shall soon be growing grapes everywhere in America, and kinds so diverse that they will meet not only all purposes to which grapes are now put, but also the demand for better grapes made by more critical consumers.
Plate XXI.—Jefferson (×3/5).
CHAPTER XVI
MISCELLANIES
There yet remain several phases of grape-culture essential to success, none of which quite deserves a chapter and none of which properly falls into any of the foregoing chapters. The subjects are not closely related, are by no means of equal importance, yet all are too important to be relegated to the limbo of an appendix and are, therefore, thrown into a chapter of miscellanies.