The Grape. 105 



seem, of "edible fruit." Hence, no doubt, the broad use 

 of it in the names strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, 

 mulberry, all of which designate fruits quite different in 

 structure from true, or botanical berries, as will appear 

 by-and-by. Genuine berries are very common, though 

 the number of eatable kinds is comparatively small. They 

 belong almost exclusively to the plants of temperate 

 countries, tropical sunshine being too powerful for them, 

 and are very generally of bright and attractive colours. 

 The grape, the currant, the gooseberry, the berbery, the 

 whortle-berry, the cranberry, the elder-berry, are in Britain 

 the chief representatives. 



THE GRAPE (Vitis vinifera). 



OTHER fruits, it may be conceded, are more generally or 

 more variously useful, but it remains true that the most 

 illustrious is the Grape. The grape is a kind of "Good 

 Samaritan;" it is the source of that which "maketh glad 

 the heart of man;" the plant producing it holds the 

 highest place in scriptural metaphor allowed to any indi- 

 vidual member of the vegetable kingdom. The history 

 can hardly be said to have a beginning ; it is lost upon 

 the horizon of the remotest past. The oldest literature in 

 the world, and the oldest monuments in the world, alike 

 deal with the vine as with something long since familiar, 

 an inheritance from days yet older. The fig-tree was the 

 first to be made useful by mankind the leaves supplying 



