Grape Culture and Civilization. 235 



the wealth and pride of many nations, and its faikire in one year is consid- 

 ered a great calamity where and when ever it occurs. 



How small a proportion of the grape production is utilized for the table 

 compared to what it is for wine-making may be seen from the official figures 

 of the State Viticultural Commission of California for 1880, which are, in 

 brief, as follows : 



10,200,000 gallons of wine; vahie in producers' hands. ..$2,795,000 00 



450,000 a;allons of brandy, at $1.15 (in bond) 517,500 00 



To this should be added for value of raisins 100,000 00 



And for grapes used for table, preserving, etc., less than 150,000 00 



Thus, you will see, that but live per cent, of the entire grape production of 

 California is used .for market and table purposes, although it produces the 

 finest table grapes, of which car-loads are sent to Eastern markets. 



We grape-growers of the Mississippi Valley can not produce as showy 

 table grapes as California, nor can we, as already stated, grow the table 

 grapes of the Eastern or Atlantic Strifes with general success; the native 

 grapes of the Mississippi Valley are emphatically wine grapes. 



I do not claim that they are the best wine grapes the world produces ; and 

 while we may excuse the poetic effusion of a Longfellow, who sang: 



There grows no vine 



By the haunted Rhine, 

 By Danube or Guadalquivir, 



Nor an island or cape 



That bears such a grape 

 As grows by the beautiful river (the Ohio). 



Or that 



Catawba wine 



Has a taste more divine — etc. 



Yet I can not indorse such presumptuous, imscientitic assertions as I find, 

 for instance, in the "American Wine and Fruit Grower," August number, 

 1882, page 7-1, " that only from these (our true wine grapes from the ^Estiva- 

 lis and Riparia class) can we make wine which will rival and surpass the best 

 wines of France, Germany and Spain." I do claim, however, that we possess 

 in the Nortons', the Cynthiana, and perhaps in some black Taylor seedlings, 

 very good red wine grapes, free from rot and mildew ; in the Noah, Elvira, 

 Mis.souri Rie.sling and others, some very promising white wine grapes; still 

 better kinds, further South, is the Lenoir (Black Spanish) and Herbemont 

 and that we shall, l>efore many years, by the production of new, superior va- 

 rieties, and by improving and progressing in the art of wine making, fully 

 equal the average productions of the wine countries of Europe, and make 

 grape growing one of the leading branches of horticulture. 



This may not seem desirable to some. I am aware that many would 

 rather, like that Chiriese emperor, uproot every vine, from a desire to pre" 

 vent intoxication. But wine is itself an apostle of temperance. The best 



