64 INTRODUCTION. 



strong incentive to action. It is the lever of 

 Archimedes which turns the world, the passion 

 that most easily besets us, and occupies each 

 avenue of the heart. The several members of 

 the community may find in a fostering protection 

 of the vine, the gratification of this pervading 

 influence. To the farmer, it will supersede the 

 crops that now, from season to season, accumu- 

 late in the warehouses of the factor, and reduce 

 to its minimum the harvest of his labours. The 

 landholder will understand the effect on his in- 

 terest, when he shall reflect that in the Canton 

 of Vaud, where but for the vine, much of the 

 ground appropriated to that culture would be 

 a barren waste, commands in the sale a better 

 price than the richest grass bottoms. The low- 

 est rate at which we may estimate the value of a 

 pose of land in that part of the Canton least fa- 

 vourable to the cultivation, is perhaps fifty 

 pounds sterling. In the district of La Vaux, the 

 best vine lands readily command eighteen thou- 

 sand francs of France per pose, about three 

 thousand five hundred dollars our money, and, 

 as may be readily supposed, from such a value, 

 is generally in the hands of the capitalist, by 

 whom it is seldom sold, and rarely to be found 

 in the market, except in case of the death of a 

 proprietor, where a sale of it may be necessary 

 to a division among his heirs. I am confident 

 that no other cultivation of Switzerland would 

 give to these lands a value of fifty dollars the 

 pose; and we have in this fact alone an argu- 

 ment paramount to the objections raised against 

 an introduction of the vine amongst us, calling 



