40 INTRODUCTION. 



cultivation, and if fairly set against the low rate 

 of foreign labour, will tend, I think, to equalize 

 us with the European vine grower. If to such 

 considerations be superadded the cost of an acre 

 of land in the vine districts of Europe, as com- 

 pared with the value of the same ground from 

 which in the United States we may reasonably 

 expect success, it seems hardly possible to doubt 

 the issue of the experiment, or to close one's 

 eyes against the tide of advantages to flow from 

 the successful attainment of such an auxiliary to 

 our suffering agriculture. 



In reflecting on the cultivation of Switzer- 

 land, where in an unequal climate it often oc- 

 curs for several successive seasons, that a tem- 

 perature of seventy degrees of Fahrenheit, does 

 not continue for more than three or four weeks 

 of their precarious summer, during the greater 

 part of which they have an obscured or overcast 

 sky, we must be strongly impressed with the fa- 

 vourable difference afforded by our climate, to a 

 cultivation, the success of which so much depends 

 on a temperature of seventy-five or eighty de- 

 grees, for at least a fair portion of the summer, 

 and a continuation of sunshine for three or four 

 months of the season. The point, I remarked, of 

 difference in their favour, and 'tis certainly of 

 great importance, is, that the month of September 

 in the Cantons is usually dry, having in general 

 a clear unclouded sky, and but little rain. Heavy 

 fogs prevail in many districts of the country, but 

 it is generally conceded that the ripening of the 

 fruit is promoted rather than retarded by that 

 circumstance, the influence of the sun usually 



