OBJECTS OF MODERN COMMEEOE. 61 



itself spontaneously, and grows with unexampled luxuriance.^ 

 But some species of the vine seem native to Europe, and many 

 varieties of grape have been too long known as common to every 

 part of the United States to admit of the supposition that they 

 were introduced by European colonists.f 



Objects of Modern Corrmterce. 



It is an interesting fact that the commerce — or at least the mar- 

 itime carrying trade — and the agricultural and mechanical indus- 

 try of the world are, in very large proportion, dependent on 

 vegetable and animal products Httle or not at all known to ancient 

 Greek, Roman and Jewish civiHzation. In many instances, the 

 chief supply of these articles comes from countries to which they 

 are probably indigenous, and where they are still almost exclu- 

 sively grown ; but in most cases, the plants or animals from which 

 they are derived have been iatroduced by man into regions now 



* The. vine-wood planks of the ancient great door of the cathedral at Ra- 

 venna, which measured thirteen feet in length by a foot and a quarter in 

 width, are traditionally said to have been brought from the Black Sea, by 

 way of Constantinople, about the eleventh or twelfth century. Vines of such 

 dimensions are now very rarely found in any other part of the East, and, 

 though I have taken some pains on the subject, I never found in Syria or in 

 Turkey a vine-stock exceeding six inches in diameter, bark excluded. Schulz, 

 iowever, saw at Beitschin, near Ptolemais, a vine measuring eighteen inches 

 in diameter. Strabo speaks of vine-stocks in Margiana (Khorasan) of such di- 

 mensions that two men, with outstretched arms, could scarcely embrace them. 

 See Strabo, ed. Casaubon, pp. 73, 516, 826. Statues, and even temple col- 

 umns, of vine-wood are mentioned by ancient writers. Very large vine-stems 

 are not common in Italy, but the vine-wood panels of the door of the chapter- 

 hall of the church of St. John at Saluzzo are not less than ten inches in vddth, 

 and I observed not long since, in a garden at PiS dl Mulera, a vine-stock with 

 a circumference of thirty inches. 



f The Northmen, who— as I think it has been indisputably established by 

 Professor Rafn, of Copenhagen — visited the coast of Massachusetts about the 

 year 1000, found grapes growing there in profusion, and the wild vine still 

 flourishes in great variety and abundance in the south-eastern counties of that 

 State. The townships in the vicinity of the Dighton rock, supposed by 

 many — with whom, however, I am sorry I can not agree — to bear a Scandi- 

 navian inscription, abound in wild vines. According to Laudonniere, His- 

 taire Notable de la Floride, reprint, Paris, 1853, p. 5, the French navigators in 

 1562 found in that peninsula "wild vines which climb the trees and produce 

 :good grapes." 



