peaking of the Alexander: "I think it will be well to push the
culture of this grape without losing time and efforts in the search
of foreign vines, which it will take centuries to adapt to our soil
and climate."

[Illustration: FIG. 2. A shoot of _Vitis Labrusca_.]

Alexander is an offshoot of the common fox-grape, _Vitis Labrusca_
(Fig. 2), found in the woods on the Atlantic coast from Maine to
Georgia and occasionally in the Mississippi Valley. The history of the
variety dates back to before the Revolutionary War, when, according
to William Bartram, the Quaker botanist, it was found growing in the
vicinity of Philadelphia, by John Alexander, gardener to Governor Penn
of Pennsylvania. Curiously enough, it came into general cultivation
through the deception of a nurseryman. Peter Legaux, a French-American
grape-grower, in 1801 sold the Kentucky Vineyard Society fifteen
hundred grape cuttings which he said had been taken from an European
grape introduced from the Cape of Good Hope, therefore called the
"Cape" grape. Legaux's grape turned out to be the Alexander. In the
new home the spurious Cape grew wonderfully well and as the knowledge
of its fruitfulness in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana spread, demand for
it increased, and with remarkable rapidity, considering the time, it
came into general cultivation in the parts of the United States then
settled.

_The Labrusca or fox-grapes._

Of the several species of American grapes now under cultivation, the
Labrusca, first represented by the Alexander, has furnished more
cultivated varieties than all the other American species together, no
less than five hundred of its varieties having been grown in the
vineyards of the country. There are several reasons why it is the most
generally cultivated species. It is native to the parts of the United
States in which agriculture soonest advanced to a state where fruits
were desired. In the wild, the Labruscas are the most attractive,
being largest and handsomest in color; among all grapes it alone shows
black-, white- and red-fruited forms on wild vines. There is a
northern and a southern form of the species, and its varieties are,
therefore, widely adapted to climates and to soils. The flavor of the
fruits of this species, all things considered, is rather better than
that of any other of our wild grapes, though the skins in most of its
varieties have a peculiar aroma, somewhat pronounced in the well-known
Concord, Niagara and Worden