50 American Horticultural Society. 



labels, which so far luis mostly been done with our best products, for wliich 

 France and Germany received the credit, while we received the blame for 

 the inferior article. We claim, and claim justly, that we can make wine — 

 the pure, unadulterated, fermented juice of the grape — good enough and 

 cheap enough to make it accessible to every laborer, every family, in the 

 Union, while we also know that we can produce quality high enough to 

 please the nicest connoisseur. And we also claim that in .so doing we are 

 furthering the cause of true tempernna;, not total abstinence, but a temperance 

 that enjoys the noblest gift of God to man in the whole realm of horticulture 

 with moderation; which drinks wine as it ought to be drank, to "gladden 

 the heart of man," and to cure our oft infirmities. We claim that it can 

 and should be introduced into every household, taken with every meal, as a 

 pure and healthy stimulant. I speak now of pure light wine — wine with a 

 natural combination of six to seven per cent, of acids and from two to three 

 per cent, of fruit salts, tannin, etc., ten to twelve per cent, of alcohol, and 

 something like eighty per cent, of water : not of the sweet Catawba.^, angel- 

 ica, sherry and ports, when the ardent spirits they contain are di.sguised by 

 sugar, and which are as unwholesome as alcoholic liquors, if not more so. 

 The wine I speak of, the fermented juice of the grape, is healthy and health- 

 inspiring; it does not originate the craving for ardent drinks that is the 

 bane of so many households. I have brought up a family of four girls and 

 two boys; they have had free access to wine every day of their lives; the 

 oldest has charge of 600,000 gallons of wine now ; and not one of them has 

 ever become intoxicated on wine yet, nor have I any fears that they ever 

 wiU. They use it daily, but never abuse it; use it in the way in which our 

 Savior intended to have it used when He made it for the guests at the mar- 

 riage feast at Cana,and instituted it as one of the sacraments, to be partaken 

 of in remembrance of His last supper. Do we need a better and holier ex- 

 ample to consecrate our calling than this? 



Let our nation follow in His footsteps, make pure light wine the uni- 

 versil drink, and we will not see so many lilling drunkards' graves as we 

 do to-day. If we can furnish good, wholesome light wine at twenty-live 

 cents per gallon here in this state, and at thirty-live to forty cents per gallon 

 in the east, it becomes a cheaper beverage than tea or coflee, and a more 

 wholesome one. We do not want the saloon-keeper as middle man to sell 

 wine at four to six dollars per gallon which cost him thirty cents. But we 

 want a family supply at that price, and every family in this state can have 

 it if they try, and get ^we gallons at a time, take it home and enjoy it at eight 

 to ten cents per bottle. Our mission is a mission of reform, in its best sense • 

 we want to supply the people with the cheapest and the best of beverages, bring 

 roses to their cheeks, elasticity to their steps, and health to their old age ; 

 and I care very little for the decisions of supreme courts, and exclusive laws 

 of individual states. I believe too much in the sound good sense of the 

 American nation to suppose that Maine or Kansas laws can fetter the free 

 agency of any man, as long as he keeps within the limits of a blameless 



