1 06 Fruits and Fruit- Trees. 



apparel, the first factor in human uprise ; and the first to 

 come into view after the subsidence of the waters was the 

 olive; but the first of the fruit-trees planted with a view 

 to consuming the produce was the vine. Noah seems to 

 have come direct, as it were, from the sublime covenant 

 of the Rainbow, when "he began to be a husbandman, 

 and planted a vineyard." Among the drawings upon the 

 walls of the tombs in ancient Egypt are representations 

 of every circumstance connected with the culture of the 

 vine; the treading of the grapes for wine-making is also 

 pictured, and the storing of the wine in earthen jars. 

 Homer, when he bestows epithets upon cities of renown, 

 and wishes to make them appear enviable and joyous, 

 employs the epithets a//7reXoete and TroXvora^vXoe, literally 

 "rich in vines," and "possessed of many clusters of 

 grapes." The same poet introduces the vine upon the 

 shield of Achilles. In every other classical author we 

 find some allusion that similarly declares the primaeval 

 fame, Virgil again referring to the imitation of it in 

 works of Art. How beautiful the description of the 

 beechen cups carved by Alcimedon, "round which a 

 curling vine, superadded by the easy-moving graver, 

 mantles the bunches diffused from the pale ivy." Ivy- 

 trails, he means, surrounded the upper portion, while 

 vine-trails rose under each handle, the leaves blending in 

 such a way as to leave lateral spaces for the figures which 

 he then proceeds to mention. It is nothing less than 

 consistent with its noble nature that this incomparable 

 plant, the Vitis vim/era, should always be foremost in 



