Taking this statement literally, we may well ask, Where, then, can grapes be grown?  According to physicians, malaria has become one of the most generally diffused products of the country.  When a man asserts that it is not in his locality, we feel sure that if pressed he will admit that it is “round the corner.”  Country populations still survive, however, and so does grape-culture.  Yet there are low-lying regions which from defective drainage are distinctively and, it would almost seem, hopelessly malarial.  In such localities but few varieties of the vine will thrive, The people who are compelled to live there, or who choose to do so, should experiment until they obtain varieties so hardy and vigorous that they will triumph over everything.  The best course with grape-diseases is not to have them; in other words, to recognize the fact at once that certain varieties of the grape will not thrive and be productive of good fruit unless the soil and climate suit them.  The proprietor of the Home Acre can usually learn by a little inquiry or observation whether grapes thrive in his locality.  If there is much complaint of mildew, grape-rot, and general feebleness of growth, he should seek to plant only the most hardy and vigorous kinds.

As I have said before, our cultivated grapes are derived from several native species found growing wild, and some now valued highly for wine-making are nothing but wild grapes domesticated; as, for instance, Norton’s Virginia, belonging to the oestivalis class.  The original plant of this variety was found growing upon an island in the Potomac by Dr. Norton, of Virginia.

The species from which the greatest number of well-known grapes is obtained is the Vitis labrusca, the common wild or fox grape, found growing in woods and thickets, usually where the ground is moist, from Canada to the Gulf.  The dark purple berries, averaging about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, ripen in September, and they contain a tough, musky pulp.  Yet this “slip of wilderness” is the parent of the refined Catawba, the delicious Brighton, and the magnificent white grape Lady Washington—­indeed, of all the black, red, and white grapes with which most people are familiar.  Our earliest grapes, which ripen in August, as well as some of the latest, like the Isabella, come from the labrusca species.  It is said that the labrusca class will not thrive in the extreme South; and with the exception of the high mountain slopes, this appears reasonable to the student of the vine.  It is said that but few of this class will endure the long hot summers of France.  But there are great differences among the varieties derived from this native species.  For example, the Concord thrives almost anywhere, while even here upon the Hudson we can scarcely grow the Catawba with certainty.  It is so good a grape, however, that I persist in making the effort, with varying success; but I should not recommend it, or many of its class, for those localities not specially suited to the grape.