18 INTRODUCTION. 



that now checks the spirit of that important 

 branch of the community, and repair the waste 

 under which cultivation languishes, in a loss of 

 the European market for her flour and her bread 

 stuffs. 



To an attainment of the object we have every 

 variety of soil, and all the different shades of ex- 

 posure and position. A long line of territory 

 from the twenty -fifth to the forty-eighth degree of 

 north latitude, from Key West to Canada, affords us 

 every vicissitude of temperature and climate, and 

 the belief can hardly be resisted, that fry a judi- 

 cious availing of the manifold advantages within 

 our reach, we shall ultimately succeed perhaps 

 beyond the hope of the most sanguine, in the cul- 

 tivation of the vine. 



I have passed the last five years principally 

 in the vine growing districts of France, Switzer- 

 land, and Italy ; have been in each during the 

 different stages of the cultivation and the vintage, 

 and from a strong attachment to the subject, 

 have given to the varied progress of the work, 

 from the incipient state of the vineyard, to the 

 operations of the wine press, the faculties of the 

 mind and the feelings of the heart. Under the 

 influence of such motives I have mixed in the 

 labours of the vine grounds, broken with the in- 

 dustrious vigneron of the Cantons his oaten loaf, 

 and accepted his freely offered wine cup, and in 

 the interchange of courtesy and kindness, melted 

 the frost which separated the European peasant 

 from his fellow man, which unlike the liberal 

 habit of our country, confines each profession 

 within its peculiar orbit. 



