Clinton began to attract attention in New York about 1840. J. W.
Bissell, of Rochester, in the _Horticulturist_ of January, 1848, writes
that the vine from which cuttings were taken was found by L. B.
Langworthy, in the garden of a Mr. Peebles above Waterford on the
Hudson. The name Clinton was given by Langworthy, who introduced it to
the trade around Rochester about 1835. There were other cultivated
varieties growing in the Peebles garden and the Clinton was not supposed
to be a seedling. Although this account of the origin of the Clinton was
published in the then most popular horticultural publication in the
United States, there were no denials nor corrections made in any of the
succeeding numbers. In 1863 there appeared in the _Elmira Advertiser_ an
account of the origin of this variety in which it was stated that the
seed from which this variety had sprung was planted by Hugh White, then
a member of Congress, in his father's garden in Whitesboro, in 1819. Two
years later, so the story runs, when he was a junior in Hamilton
College, Clinton, New York, White transplanted the vine east of the
house of Dr. Noyes, with whom he then boarded. There were no denials of
this report, probably on account of the fact that the introducer at
Rochester was dead; and the account and Whitesboro as the place of
origin were later generally accepted by horticultural writers. In 1852
the Ohio Pomological Society determined that the Worthington and the
Clinton grapes were identical. Later this was generally accepted by
viticulturists as being correct. The Worthington is an old sort known to
Adlum and Prince, and was said by the latter to have originated in the
vicinity of Annapolis, Maryland.
Clinton was placed on the grape list of the American Pomological Society
fruit catalog in 1862, where it has since been retained.
Clinton is usually considered a Riparia, as most of the botanical
characters indicate this species. However, occasional canes with
continuous tendrils are characteristic of Labrusca.
Vine a rank grower, healthy, hardy, productive. Canes long,
numerous, slender to medium, brown to reddish-brown; nodes
enlarged, slightly flattened; internodes of average length;
diaphragm thick to medium; pith large; shoots smooth; tendrils
usually intermittent but sometimes continuous, bifid.
Leaf-buds rather large and short, thick, obtuse to conical, open
early. Young leaves very faintly tinged with carmine on lower side
only. Leaves hang until very late in the season, medium to small,
thin; upper surface dark green, smooth; lower surface pale green,
not pubescent; veins indistinct; petiolar sinus deep, medium to
narrow, often urn-shaped; basal and lateral sinuses shallow to
medium when present; teeth of average depth, rather wide. Flowers
fertile, open early; stamens upright.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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