INTRODUCTION. 7t 



known to despotic rule. We confide in the per- 

 manency of the system, where the people are 

 sovereign, and feel that no oppression can live, 

 which springs from a delegated power, whilst 

 the inhabitant of Neufchatel has no security for 

 his rights but the personal character of his king, 

 whose breath, like that of other men, is in his 

 nostrils, and who at any moment, may be called 

 to his eternal reward, to be succeeded, it may 

 be, in his government, by all the misrule which 

 stains the story of Nero, or Domitian, or Ca- 

 ligula. 



The wines of Neufchatel are white and red, 

 the latter being generally preferred, having more 

 body, and capable of preservation to a greater 

 age. The white, however, possesses this ad- 

 vantage : it better resists the rigours of the 

 Swiss climate, and flourishes when a less degree 

 of heat can be obtained, and where any attempt 

 to cultivate the red grape must be futile. I have 

 omitted in this brief view of the Swiss vines, 

 some of the minor districts of the country, con- 

 fining myself to such as came within the range 

 of my personal observation. Many of these ap- 

 pear to me, to possess important points, available 

 to the American agriculturalist. The vine is 

 indigenous to the United States. To Switzer- 

 land it is of foreign origin. Is it not strange that 

 in Pennsylvania, the climate of which forms a 

 summer temperature, eminently favourable to 

 the habits of the plant, we should this day be 

 tributary to foreign countries for an article 

 which by habit has become a necessary of life, 

 and continue to change the harvest of a hundred 



