Vine vigorous, subject to winter injury in unfavorable locations, variable in productiveness. Canes intermediate in length and number, slender; tendrils continuous to intermittent, bifid. Leaves large, not uniform in color, thin; lower surface grayish-green, thinly pubescent. Flowers sterile to imperfectly self-fertile, open late; stamens short. Fruit ripens a little earlier than Concord, keeps and ships well. Clusters large to medium, often long and broad, irregularly tapering, sometimes heavily single-shouldered, intermediate in compactness. Berries large, roundish to oval, purplish-black covered with heavy blue bloom, very persistent, firm. Skin thick, rather tough, adheres considerably to the pulp, decidedly astringent. Flesh greenish, tough, stringy, slightly foxy, sweet at skin to acid at center, good to very good in quality. Seeds adherent, rather large, long, sharp-pointed.
(I) OHIO.
(Bourquiniana.)
1. Mag. Hort., 8:168. 1842. 2. Ib., 9:191, 430. 1843. 3. Downing, 1845:251, 257. 4. U. S. Pat. Off. Rpt., 1845:937, 940. 5. Ib., 1847:465. 6. N. Y. Ag. Soc. Rpt., 1848:366. 7. Thomas, 1849:398. 8. Mag. Hort., 16:546. 1850. 9. Horticulturist, 6:224. 1851. 10. Bush. Cat., 1883:127. 11. Tex. Farm and Ranch, Feb. 8, 1896:11. 12. Traité gen. de vit., 6:374. 1903.
Alabama (12). Black Spanish (12). Black Spanish Alabama (12,?10). The Black (12). Blue French (12). Burgundy (12). Cigar Box (2, 8, 9, 11, 12). Devereaux (12). El Paso (12). Jack (9, 10, 12). Jacques (10, 12). Jacquez (12). Jac (12). Jacquet (12). Lenoir (12). Longworth’s Ohio (4, 8). Longworth’s Ohio (3, 7, 10, 11, 12). MacCandless (12). Ohio (12). Segar Box (3, 6, 7, 10, 12).
At one time Ohio attracted a great deal of attention in southern grape regions as a wine grape of the Lenoir group but was discarded as inferior to other similar grapes, lacking chiefly in hardiness and in health of vine. The grape is somewhat interesting from its singular history.
In 1834 some grape cuttings in a cigar-box were left at the home of Nicholas Longworth of Cincinnati, Ohio, during Mr. Longworth’s absence from home. The man who left them did not return and Longworth could not succeed in tracing the donor’s identity. From these came Ohio.
The Ohio has, at different times, been said to be the same, in turn, as Herbemont, Lenoir and Norton. In regard to the first, Longworth had Herbemont in cultivation before he received the Ohio and neither he nor his vineyardists failed to see distinct and constant differences between the two varieties. The last two are disposed of in the Cincinnati Horticultural Society Report given on the next page. Longworth and others corroborated these statements from their own comparisons of the varieties growing in the vineyards around Cincinnati. Many grape-growers, and Longworth of the number, have been of the opinion that Ohio might be the same as the variety cultivated in Mississippi under the name Jack or Jacques, both names being corruptions of Jacquez, an old Spaniard who had introduced the grape into the section around Natchez. The Ohio is probably now obsolete. It did not succeed north of Cincinnati and its culture was dropped in the place of its origin on account of its susceptibility to mildew and black-rot.
The following description of Ohio is taken from a report to the Cincinnati Horticultural Society:[205] “Very fine specimens of the grape cultivated under this name, were presented by N. Longworth and J. E. Mottier, some of the bunches measuring nine inches in length. As there has been some belief expressed by eastern cultivators, that this grape is the same as Norton’s Seedling, of Virginia, the committee took pains to examine them together, in Mr. Longworth’s garden, where both were pointed out to us by Mr. Sleath, the gardener. The difference between the two was at once apparent and striking. In the grape shown as the Norton’s Seedling, said by Mr. Sleath to have been obtained from Mr. Norton himself, the wood is not so bright a red as in the Ohio, and the leaf is large and entire, whereas that in the Ohio is three-lobed; the bud is also much less prominent and not so pointed as in the Ohio. The bunches of fruit in the Norton’s Seedling were shorter and more compact, with a thick pulp. In the Ohio, the bunches were long, very much shouldered, conical or sharp-pointed, and the fruit without pulp—sweeter, more juicy and vinous in flavor, and the seeds smaller, darker colored and less numerous than in the Norton’s Seedling.
“The Committee think the grape brought into notice here, by N. Longworth, Esq., under the names of the Ohio or Cigar box, a valuable and distinct variety, and well worthy of cultivation. This grape has a stronger resemblance to the Le Noir which was also growing near; but its bunches were more shouldered, more pointed, and less compact.”