OULTIVATION OF THE URAl'E. 



These were distributed to every part of the Union, from New York to Missouri 

 and as far south as CiCurjria and Texas. The average prices were, fur ('uttiuj^s 

 two dollars and a half per thousand and for roots forty dollars per thousand. 



It is interesting to know that while the increase has been so large in the quantity 

 of wine manufactured, the demand increases in a still greater ratio. The first 

 cultivators found considerable difficulty in obtaining a market for the produce of their 

 vines but now they have a ready market for their vintage at good prices. 



In addition to the amount under cultivation for grapes above stated, other parts 

 of the south and west are extensively employed in the same manner. At Hermann 

 Mi.ssouri — there are five hundred acres and in Indiana, Kentucky, Tenncss( > 

 North Carolina and Georgia are probably as many acres more. 



"We who admiringly glance over these thriving vineyards scarcely think of the 

 many difficulties which surrounded the introduction of the grape into our country. 



Many years were spent in unsuccessful attempts and not a few instances of severe 

 loss and disappointment to the early cultivators occurred before success was 

 attained. 



Immigrants from the Vine-Clad hills of Switzerland, France and Germany brought 

 with them both the European vines and the skill to cultivate themj fondly hoping 

 to reproduce here about their new homes, that which had become to them the 

 emblem of peace and plenty; the name of which like the "Hearthstone" of our 

 more northern ancestry was the word around which clustered all the associations (»f 

 Hovie. 



Although from the earliest settlements of the west various efforts were made to 

 cultivate the vine, both by importing foreign varieties and by selecting the best pro- 

 ductions of our native wilds; not one of these early vineyards is now in existence and 

 no one has to this day, in any part of the United States, been successful in obtain- 

 ing even a tolerable vineyard from any foreign grape. 



Nor has any one of the hundreds of nurserymen and amateurs who have been 

 and still are industriously striving to obtain new seedling varieties yet produced 

 one which has been sufficiently valuable in all respects to come into general 

 cultivation. 



The only source then from which has been derived those two or three varieties 

 which have formed the basis of American success, has been our native grapes. 



While this infant enterprise was maintaining a doubtful conflict with difficulties 

 seemingly unsurmountable ; it received the timely aid of Mr. N. Longworth, even 

 then one of Cincinnati's wealthiest citizens who after spending more than one small 

 fortune in fruitless attempts to introduce the foreign vine and vinedressers, obtained 

 and proved the value of the Catawba Grape which now constitutes nine tenths of the 

 vineyards cultivated in the west. It is a native grape obtained from the mountains 

 of North Carolina. 



In the manufacture of wine Mr. Longworth has rendered to the country no less 

 signal service — for without any experience to guide him, which was adapted to our 

 new circumstances, a multitude of vexatious disappointments and losses must be met 

 and overcome. Even after years of successful manufacture a year or two since 



