584 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



vated in the United States. They are all, in proper situations, 

 highly valuable. Lucern, in any system of soiling, would be 

 extremely useful as coming early in the spring, and giving under 

 good culture an enormous yield, being at the same time a plant / 

 which actually enriches the soil. For later feeding in the season, 

 the farmers of the United States have that most valuable of all 

 plants for its forage and its grain, Indian corn, or maize. I may 

 say, with the great Arthur Young, &quot; that a country is signally 

 blessed above others, which can grow Indian corn.&quot; In the 

 Middle States of the United States, sainfoin might perhaps be 

 cultivated to advantage ; in the Northern States, experience has 

 shown that the winters are too severe for it. It makes a most 

 nutritious and excellent hay. M Vetches yield a large abundance 

 of green feed. St. John s-day rye, of which I have spoken, mayVN 

 be cut two or three times, and yield also a large crop of grain. \ 

 This would make an excellent forage for the purpose of soiling ; 

 so, also, the improved Italian rye-grass, which, when properly 

 cared for, bears cutting several times in a season, and yields most 

 abundantly. 



y I must add, in the next place, that I should be glad to see the 

 &amp;gt;. cultivation of the vine extended in the United States. In many 

 parts of France, Germany, and Switzerland, it occupies land, 

 steep acclivities, heights wholly inaccessible to a horse or cart, 

 and where the manure is always carried up, the produce brought 

 down, and sometimes the very soil in which it grows, trans 

 ported by hand. There is land enough in the United States for 

 its cultivation without such extreme toil. As an article of 

 commerce, it would probably prove lucrative ; and as an article 

 of comfort, perhaps few are more grateful and harmless. I speak j 

 in this case of the light wines of France, which do not intoxicate 

 \ unless drunk to beastly excess. The strong wines of Spain and 

 Portugal are made by some factitious process, and charged with 

 / brandy ; but the light wines of France, being the pure juice of 

 the grape, exhilarate, but do not intoxicate. They take the 

 I place of tea and coffee among the laboring people, and constitute 

 Van innocent alleviation of their severe toil. I should be sorry in 

 /any way to abridge these comforts, especially as I may say in 

 truth, after travelling a long distance in the wine-growing dis- 

 \ tricts. and at the time of the wine-making, or vintage, when it 

 is to be had in the greatest abundance, that I saw no drunken- 



