STATK IIORTrOVILTlIRAT, SOOTRTY. 79 



GRAPE CULTURE. 



Geo. C. Eisenmayer presented the following report : 



The culture of the grape is a department of industry which has been 

 engaged in from the earliest times. In the period of the Pentateuch 

 mention is made of cultivating grapes, and we find much valuable infor- 

 mation on the same subject in profane history. In fact, grape culture, for 

 the manufacture of wine from the fruits' rich and valuable juice, extends 

 back through all ages and to the remotest ends of antiquity. I may take 

 it upon myself, too, to advance the statement that we shall find it still 

 continued through the most distant centuries of the great and illimitable 

 future. So long as there is a remnant of aesthetic material still left to 

 make up the taste and character of the great human family, we shall find 

 this pursuit in existence. 



Grapes are of thousands of different varieties, and each species 

 differs in some degree from all the others. There is some distinguishing 

 quality or characteristic peculiar to each kind and variety of this noble 

 fruit ; each sort possesses certain peculiar and particular advantages, and 

 must be cultivated, treated, and turned into the common product, wine, 

 after a certain method. One common plan and climate will not answer 

 for all of the many species of grapes, but for each distinct kind we 

 require a separate manner of procedure, and, as diversified and numerous 

 as are the varieties of the grape, so diversified and numerous are the sys- 

 tems of cultivation and manufacture. When we consider, therefore, the 

 enormity of the ground that would be covered in a full and complete 

 treatise on the subject of grape culture, we must become astonished with 

 the amount of knowledge that one should possess in order to be thor- 

 oughly and completely informed upon all its particulars. 



We sometimes view grapes and wine as an article of luxury and as 

 something that might be dispensed with; yet, when we reflect upon the 

 fact that we are supplied with so many varieties of this fruit, each 

 designed for its own special climate, and each possessing its own special 

 qualities, do we not recognize it as an article of such necessity that the 

 wisdom of the great Creator has deemed it necessary to distribute it in 

 such a way as to furnish the greater inhabitable portion of the earth's 

 surface with it ? The wisdom of the great Designer has made it adapt- 

 able to a wide range of climates, so that mankind may be everywhere 

 made capable of obtaining it. Our attention, as fruit-men, should be 

 given in a greater degree than it has been given to the culture and 

 development of the grape. 



To illustrate something which will show the varieties and the 

 influence of climate and soil, let us turn to the celebrated country of the 

 Rhine, the Moselle, and other like famous wine-raising regions. There 

 you will find the grapes of all grapes the best and finest. This is owing 

 to the excellent, healthy and balmy atmosphere, and in a great degree to 

 the nature of the soil of those districts. 



