George W. Remaily was a viticulturist, notably of winter hardy table grapes. He studied at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1933-35 and was known as a landscape artist before he was recognized as a viticulturist. In the 1960s he moved with his wife to Hammondsport N.Y. from Bucks County, Pa., in order to continue grape breeding experiments and to collaborate with staff at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, N.Y. Over the course of his life and well into his 80s, he collected over 2000 cultivars on both his Pennsylvania and New York properties to use for his many crosses. The focus of his work was crossing Vinifera seedless table grapes varieties with native seedless varieties in order to create winter hardy seedless table grapes. This accomplishment was a first in viticulture. His vineyard had a large collection of American, Asian and European hybrids, comprising a collection of root stock used throughout the world. For many years, he was associated with the Experiment Station at Geneva, where a vast collection of his originations were evaluated, resulting in such named varieties as Einsett Seedless, Marquis (currently in Stark catalog), and Remaily Seedless. During his tenure with the station, as the leading authority on indigenous species, he was invited to write a paper for the United Nations defining grape germ plasm.
From the guide to the George W. Remaily papers, 1970-2000., (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library)
