VINEYARDS. 41 



one-fourth of an acre, which was planted four years previous, 

 2,900 pounds, at twenty cents per pound, amounting to $580. 



Downing says that all that can be said for a soil for grape 

 culture is that it be light, rich and dry. Open air grape culture 

 can be made a most profitable pursuit with us, and doubtless 

 will be at no distant date. An intelligent farmer, with a vine- 

 yard of an acre or less in extent, with a little labor will soon 

 find himself in the receipt of a handsome income from that 

 source alone. Grapes this year have brought an average of 

 twenty cents a pound, and the demand for them is constantly 

 increasing. The purpose for which grapes will be raised here, 

 will, of course, be mostly for the table. Pure wine from the 

 Concord grape is both a healthful and delicious beverage, and 

 finds ready sale at remunerative prices. A writer on this subject 

 says of the future prospects of grape culture, " of its extent and 

 influences it would be difficult to speak. But we feel assured 

 that whether in the form of wine or of fruit, the produce of the 

 vine cannot fail to do much good in this country — not the least 

 of its advantages behig that it will afford those with small capital 

 a very pleasant mode of securing a competency." 



In vine culture, after the first great effort has been made to 

 get the soil suitably prepared, there is really little hard work to 

 be done. The wild grape-vines were among the first objects 

 that attracted the attention of the early voyagers to our coast. 

 They were seen growing in such profusion that the country was 

 called Vineland. Daniel Webster once made the remark that 

 we could never hope to raise good wine on this continent, and 

 that it would always pay us better to raise corn, cotton, &c, and 

 buy our wines and silks. California is likely to controvert the 

 assertion of the great statesman. Indeed, she has already done 

 so, with her annual product of two million gallons of wine. 

 The Jesuit missionaries in California, and on the Pacific coast, 

 and the French and Swiss settlers in our Western States, were 

 the first planters of vineyards in the New World. But the great 

 turning-point of vine culture in America was when the Catawba 

 grape was introduced by Major Adlum, who considered that he 

 conferred greater benefit in so doing upon the American nation 

 than he would have done by paying off the national debt — of 

 that day, of course, and not the present national debt. 



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