First, the species are so distributed throughout the United States, and individuals of the species grow in such abundance and luxuriance, as to suggest that we shall be able to improve and domesticate some one or more of them for all of the agricultural regions of the country. For it is proved that nearly all of the wild grapes have horticultural possibilities; and experience with many plants teaches that the boundaries of areas inhabited by the wild species of a given region coincide with those suited to the production of the domesticated plant in that region. It is not possible to tell where the grape-growing regions of the future are to be located; for species and individuals of this fruit are so common that no one can say where the grape is most at home in America. Second, grapes are so variable and plastic in nature that, were it not known from experience, it could be assumed that they would yield readily to improvement. Besides being variable they hybridize freely and thus the plant-breeder can obtain desirable starting points. There are indications that some of the characters of grapes, at least, follow Mendel's Law, and when once these have been determined, and the more important unit characters segregated and defined, it ought to be possible to combine and rearrange the characters of this fruit with some system and surely with more certainty than in the past. This brief introduction leads us to the consideration of American grapes as cultivated plants. We have seen that it is an absolute impossibility to grow the Old World grape in eastern America. The fruit-growers in this great region are forced to plant the native grapes if any. It required two hundred years to establish this fact and it is less than a hundred years since grape-growers have generally acknowledged it as a fact. What was known of American grapes during the two hundred years wasted in attempting to grow the foreign Vinifera? And what has been accomplished in a century in ameliorating the native grapes? The earliest European visitors to the Atlantic seaboard delighted in the wild grapes which they found everywhere and which reminded them of the Old World vineyards. Had they never seen such a fruit, the wild grapes could not long have escaped their attention; for the Indians knew and used them as they did potatoes, corn, and tobacco. In the narratives of the early voyages the grape is often in the lists of the resources and treasures of the new-found continent. Unfortunately it was not considered of great intrinsic value but only suggested to the explorers that the grape of the old home might be grown in the new home. Could a part of the exaggerated esteem given by the early European travelers and home-seekers to sassafras, ginseng and other such plants, have been bestowed upon the wild grapes which over-run the country, viticulture would have taken rank with the tobacco, lumber and the fish industries of the early settlers.