Grape Culture and Civilization. 231 



when the vines are in bloom, from his grave to bless the vines along the river 

 Rhine. In fact, the history of all times and all civilized nations records the 

 introduction and progress of grape culture, keeping pace with the progress 

 of culture and civilization. In this country of ours, exactly two hundred 

 years ago, William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, gave to that place, 

 now part of Philadelphia, which was then first settled by Germans from the 

 Rhine and called German town, a town seal with the inscription: " Vinum, 

 Linum et Dextrinum" to indicate the approval of their special industries, 

 " viticulture, flax culture and weaving." The United States Government, by 

 its Department of Agriculture, has always given a fostering care — such as it 

 could give — to this important branch of horticulture. In 1861 the Legisla- 

 ture of California appointed a commission with a view to promote the cul- 

 ture of the grape-vine, and Mr. Haraszty was sent by the Governor to Europe, 

 from where he brought hundreds of valuable varieties, including the now 

 famous Zinfindel, to the Golden Gate, and made the Pacific coast one of the 

 great whie-producing countries of the world. Republics are ungrateful, and 

 Mr. Haraszty's noble and successful efforts were never paid by the State; 

 but now, when the phylloxera threatens to destroy the very valuable industry, 

 the Legislature of California appropriated $10,000 for the use of the State 

 Viticultural Commission for the year 1881, and $10,000 more for the year 

 1882. France has spent for the same purpose, to save her vineyards from 

 the ravages of the phylloxera, hundreds of thousands of francs; and, since it 

 was discovered that certain American vines were the best, if not the only 

 pi'actical means of reconstituting grape culture in Europe, the governments 

 of Italy, Spain and Portugal have also planted and encouraged the planting 

 of American grape-vines in their States. 



Where is, or was, "the original home of the grape-vine?" This question 

 has, from time immemorial, been a matter of dispute. The honor was 

 claimed for Mount Nysa, the cradle of Bacchus; for father Noah's Ararat; 

 for Persia and Colchis. Nearly all writers on grape culture, however, placed 

 it somewhere in Asia. The French even to-day call it the Asiatic grape, 

 and naturalists generally designate that species as the " Vitis Vinifem," the 

 only " true grape." All cultivated grapes are supposed to be varieties of that 

 species, and the V. Labrusca and other wild grapes merely degenerated or 

 retrograded seedlings of the same. It is but quite lately that the incorrect- 

 ness of that assumption has been recognized; that scientific researches have 

 established the important truth : that nature herself has brought forth or de- 

 veloped different species of grapes in various climates and soils, from which 

 human skill and industry should produce and cultivate the noblest of fruit 

 adapted to its surroundings. Geological discoveries have proven that it is 

 the indigenous wild grape of the Rhine, from which the celebrated Riesling 

 of Germany originated, and not the Orleans grape, transplanted by Emperor 

 Charlemagne. It now seems incredible that we could so long be blinded by 

 authority when it was known that the grapes of Persia, .vhich Hafiz men- 

 tions in his songs (translated into all European languages), and which Sir 



