from several of our Garden Fruits. 293 



island, particularly in Devon and Cornwall, I have known 

 vines so abundantly and successfullv wall-trained, as to pra- 

 duce, for private families, an ample supply of most pleasant 

 and valuable wine. Indeed the practice is so conunon among 

 the cottagers and others inhabiting houses built of brick, that 

 at the ripening season many poor and middling people are 

 in the habit of selling large quantities of grapes, at very rea- 

 sonable prices, to their more wealthy neighbours, for the 

 purpose of making wine. And it is not easily conceivable, 

 by strangers to the practice, what quantities of useful and 

 pleasant wines are made in warm summers from these sources, 

 and that at an easy expense. The fruit, indeed, cannot be 

 expected to be uniformly ripe and excellent, but by far the 

 largest part of the bunches are generally good, and fit for 

 use ; and those who have been most in the habit of the ma- 

 nufacture, and can afford to keep the wine by them for years 

 in succession, well know that the improvement by meliora- 

 tion of time is sufficiently remarkable and encouraging. As 

 to the benevolent uses to which such wines may be occa- 

 sionally applied among the poor and sickly of a neighbour- 

 hood, little need be said to recommend the practice. It is 

 sufficient to say, that this species of useful benevolence is. 

 known to be e.xcited by the cheapness and ease with which 

 families in sufficient affluence become possessed of a mode- 

 rate store by their own ceconomy and provident exertions. 

 I would therefore submit to you the propriety of our recom- 

 mending a more general attention to this domestic object 

 than our part of the nation seems to be acquainted with. 

 The risk is small indeed ; no land, useful for the purpose 

 of agriculture, need be encumbered with it. The trial is 

 easily made. The success may be at once pleasing and be- 

 neficial ; and examples of such success, though gradual in 

 their evidence, may become in process of time extensively 



and lastingly influential. 



WiLMAM Matthews. 



I shall now take the liberty of annexing a letter on the 



foregoing subject from an old and valuable corres]iondcnt, 



James Anderson, esq. LL.D. and F.R.S., in answtr to one 



T 4 writttto 



