purple, red or scarlet. The breadth of the leaves varies from five to ten inches, and the length of the stalk which supports the leaf, from four to eight inches. The flowers are produced on the shoots of the same season, which shoots generally proceed from those of the year preceding; they are of a greenish color and fragrant odor-are produced in the form of a cluster of grapes, and expand in June. The berries are of a variety of forms, of various colors, and differing also in flavor, which is poignant, elevated and grateful.

The flowers have each a five-toothed calyx, and five almost colorless petals, which fall off early; five stamens, and a superior germ, surmounted by a style and obtuse stigma.

Each berry naturally contains five heart-shaped seeds; but many varieties originating from culture have but three, others but two, and sometimes one, and there are others which have

none.

The tendrils are opposite to the leaves, and may be considered as abortive clusters, and can be made to produce fruit by destroying the real clusters when they first put forth, breaking off at the same time the extremity of the shoot on which they grow, so as to cause the sap to flow into them.

The eye or bud is surrounded by three or four scaly coverings, under which, especially on the upper part, there is an adhesive substance of a white or red color, which protects it from the effect of rains and winter frosts. The fruit is of an astringent and refrigerant nature, and is composed of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen, and the juice, when fermented, produces acetic acid. It is in its wild state black, very small, with large seeds, and without flavor.

The vine may be traced back to remote antiquity, and it has been held in high estimation in all ages of the world. The cultivation of the vine was probably amongst the earliest efforts of husbandry. We read in the ninth chapter of Genesis, that one of the first acts of Noah, after being saved from the deluge, was to plant a vineyard. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard;' thus plainly indicating that the planting a vineyard was, even at that early day, deemed one of the primary and most important acts of him who tilled the earth. Among the blessings held out to the Israelites as productions of the promised land, the vine is particularly mentioned-A land of wheat, and barley, and vines;' and the spies which were sent into the land of Canaan to ascertain its riches, on their return bore a cluster of grapes on a girdle between them. The vine is also frequently mentioned by the ancient patriarchs and fathers, as an em

6

blem representing the riches of a country, or the flourishing condition of a nation, tribe or family- Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt,' &c.; Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine,' &c. Solomon also speaks of its power to gladden the heart and to banish sorrow; and the generous wine' has for ages been deemed a fit oblation for fallen man to offer to the Deity, and to mingle in the sacred offerings of his homage.

6

Even among the heathen nations of antiquity, the vine was held in the highest esteem and veneration. The invention of wine was ascribed by the ancient Egyptians to Osiris, by the Latins to Saturn, and the Greeks elevated Bacchus to the rank of a deity, for having brought the vine from Arabia Felix; and after first cultivating it himself, he transmitted it to every country which submitted to his conquests, and taught its use and value to man. He is represented by Pliny to have been the first who ever wore a crown; and as the god of vintage and of wine, his crown is formed of the vine; and its twining branches, bedecked with clusters of fruit, is still selected as an emblem of hilarity and gladness. Even the crown of Juno was also made of the vine. Plato, one of the wisest of men, and who so particularly restrains the use of wine within reasonable bounds, and so severely censures its abuse by excess, remarks, that nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by God to man.

To show still further that the ancients were well aware of its abuse as well as of its worth, although we find Bacchus generally represented with a countenance full of jollity, yet he is often depicted as an old man with his head encircled by the vine, to teach us that wine taken to excess will induce enervation, destroy our health and strength, and render us weak, loquacious, and childish like old men.

The vine, says Humboldt, which we now cultivate does not belong to Europe; it grows wild on the coasts of the Caspian Sea in Armenia, and in Caramania. Upper Asia is supposed to be its native country. Dr. Sickler remarks, that the Phoenicians, who had widely extended their commerce, and who frequently explored the coasts of the Mediterranean, introduced the culture of the vine into the isles of the Archipelago, and afterwards into Greece and the island of Sicily; from thence into Italy, Provence, and the territory of Marseilles, at the time they founded the city of that name. When Julius Cæsar conquered the Gauls, there were many vineyards celebrated for their produce in the republic of Marseilles, and in the province of Narbonne; and it is believed that the first vineyards of Burgundy existed in the

age

of the Antonines, but the other parts of Gaul and Helvetia were destitute of them at that time. Indeed it is said that about this time a Swiss blacksmith having crossed the Alps into Italy, on his return brought back some grapes and some figs, which caused the whole nation to determine on emigrating to so desirable a country, producing such delicious fruits, and that they departed, after setting fire to their towns and villages, but were driven back in their attempt to cross the Alps by Julius Cæsar; and also a second time in attempting to cross the river Soane and go round the Alps, by Nice. According to Strabo, the vines of Languedoc and Provence produced the same kind of fruit as those of Italy, which undoubtedly sprang from the same origin. At about the year 85 the culture of the vine had become general in the southern and middle departments of France, and gradually extending itself over the other parts of Gaul, when Domitian, being informed of the great scarcity of grain in the Roman dominions, imputed it to the vast increase of vineyards in Italy and the provinces, which he thought was the cause that rendered agriculture too much neglected, and deeming also their existence to so great an extent as an incitement to sedition, from the encouragement they gave to intemperance, he issued an edict prohibiting the planting of any new vineyards in Italy, and ordering the whole (some historians say one half) of those in the provinces to be destroyed. This privation lasted about two centuries, during which no vineyards could be planted without permission of the emperor; and the provincials did not receive permission to re-plant them until about the year 280, when Probus, after numerous victories which gave peace to his empire, manifested a great desire to encourage agricultural pursuits in all the provinces, and rescinded the edict of Domitian. The renewal of this privilege appears to have been received with great satisfaction; for tradition still retained in the memory of the Gauls the great advantages that species of culture had afforded them; and the vines of Sicily, Italy, Greece, the Archipelago and Africa, were again transplanted to the provinces of Gaul, and became the origin of the innumerable varieties which now cover with vineyards the territories of France. The formation of these new plantations of the vine are said to have presented a delightful and cheering spectacle. Crowds of persons of both sexes and of all ages were seen voluntarily and enthusiastically devoting themselves to an occupation in which all could take part-to that pleasing restoration of liberty, the re-planting of vineyards. It appears also to have been

about this period (some authors say it was in 270) that the vine was planted in the northern parts of Gaul, and about the rivers Rhine, Moselle and Maine, and in Hungary. The vineyards of France had very early attained to celebrity, wines having been even exported from them to Italy in the reign of Vespasian.

About the beginning of the fourth century, Eumenius mentions the vines of the territory of Autun, which had become decayed by age, and the first plantation of which was entirely unknown; and M. D'Anville supposes the Pagus Arebrignus to be the district of Beaune, celebrated even at the present day for some of the finest vineyards of Burgundy. St. Martin planted vines in Touraine before the end of the fourth century; and St. Romi, who lived about the end of the fifth, left in his will to different churches the vineyards which he possessed in the territories of Rheims and Laon, with the slaves which he employed to cultivate them. The export of wines, however, from Bordeaux to England did not commence until about the year 1172.

It has been said that wine was introduced into England by the Romans; but if so, it could not have been till near the close of their influence, for Tacitus observes, that it was not known when Agricola commanded in the island. At the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons, however, when the country had been under the Roman dominion four hundred years, and had received, in that long period, all the encouragement which that people gave to the agriculture of their provinces, the vine, without doubt, was extensively cultivated. Vineyards are mentioned in the earliest Saxon charters, as well as gardens and orchards, and this was before the combating invaders had time or ability to make them, if they had not found them in the island. In the Cottonian Manuscripts, in the British museum, there are some delineations in a Saxon calendar, which, in the month of February, represent men cutting or pruning trees, some of which resemble vines. King Edgar, in an old grant, gives the vineyard situate at Wecet, together with the vine-dressers. In Domesday Book, vineyards are mentioned in several counties. According to William of Malmesbury, who flourished in the first half of the twelfth century, the culture of the vine had in his time arrived at such perfection within the vale of Gloucester, that a sweet and palatable wine, little inferior to that of France, was made there in abundance. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, almost every large castle and monastery in England had its vineyard.

Grapes first came in demand as a table fruit at the beginning of the sixteenth century. They appear, however, to have become rare in England about the year 1560, during the reign of Elizabeth, and from that time their culture seems to have declined for a long course of years. Since the commencement of the present century, great interest has again been awakened to the culture of the vine, both among their scientific horticulturists, and among the numerous amateurs of this fruit; and grapes for the table, of the finest quality, the product of their own soil, are a regular article of sale in the London markets for nine months in a year.

The vineyards of Europe are composed solely of the varieties of a single species of vine, and that a foreign one transplanted to her soil. In our own country numerous species and varieties are everywhere met with, springing up spontaneously in our woods and prairies-nature's own gifts unaided by culture or by toil. Hence we possess not only all the advantages that France and the other wine countries enjoy, from our having already introduced the choicest varieties which those climes can boast, but this advantage is enhanced by the numerous varieties which our own country presents to us. And in a comparison of our natural situation with Persia and other countries of the East, as regards the number of species, we enjoy, by parity of reasoning, advantages tenfold those which were originally possessed by them, as they commenced the vine culture with a single species alone.

*

The regions which produce the wine grape have a mean annual temperature of 50° on the northern border, and 59° on the southern. Lines of temperature have been described by Humboldt, by observing the peculiar vegetables in different countries. He has traced the northern limit of the wine grape, where the mean annual temperature is about 50°, from near the latitude of Albany across the United States to the Pacific Ocean; not however in a straight line, for climate, although chiefly dependent on latitude, is yet much modified by other circumstances, as warm vallies, moisture of air, and richness of soil; and on the western coast of America, we find in latitude 50° a similar climate to the 43° of latitude on the eastern coast. Thus the wine grape may grow in 50° of latitude near the lakes, the Mississippi, and the Pacific Ocean,

* By mean annual temperature is meant a medium between the extremes of heat and cold. In a climate where the thermometer in summer would rise to 100°, and in winter sink to zero or 0, the medium would be 50°. The mean annual temperature at the equator is computed to be about 84°, and that of Boston 48.6°.