414 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



cultivation of the grape on all our valleys and hills, will do more 

 for the suppression of an evil existing to some extent among us, 

 than all the prohibitory liquor laws have hitherto done, how 

 essential soever these may be deemed to the welfare of society. 

 A chaplain in the United States Navy, writing from the Medi- 

 terranean recently, says : " It is a fact, all Italy is drinking, all 

 Greece and all France, and there is no drunkenness ;" and he 

 adds, " perhaps the remedy for us is in the universal cultivation 

 of the grape." However this might prove, on trial, a much 

 greater attention to this choice fruit is demanded — fruit that 

 may be kept in all its original freshness and flavor for our tables 

 in mid- winter, as in autumn — thus amply repaying all care and 

 toil in the gratification it would afford to the appetite, and the 

 healthfulness it would give to the physical system. 



L. Wright, Jr., Chairman, 



HAMPSHIRE. 



From the Report of the Committee. 



Grapes. — The specimens of grapes were well ripened and of 

 excellent flavor. A raisin Isabella was particularly delicious. 

 Some very fine specimens of foreign grapes were brought into 

 the hall by Orin Sage, of Ware : the varieties were the White 

 Grape, White Nice, Austrian Muscat, White Bual, White Sweet- 

 water, Royal Muscadine and Syrian ; of the dark varieties. 

 Black Hamburgh, Victoria Hamburgh, Red Trarminer and 

 Gridley Fontigau. The magnificent clusters of the Hamburghs, 

 and the transparent delicacy of the lighter varieties furnished 

 a pleasant temptation to the palate. Any one must have felt 

 full of grape, while mentally drinking in these Sweetwaters ; 

 and we should not be very much suriDrised if some shooting 

 affairs should come off next spring, as the result of the hot- 

 headedness produced by this infusion. 



We understand that these grapes are raised under glass with- 

 out fire — the temperature of our climate being elevated enough 

 to ripen the fruit, if the sudden changes of weather can be 

 guarded against. 



