Raisins. 121 



Cincinnati and St. Louis, and sold under the name of 

 " Sparkling Catawba." Florida and California are in no 

 degree behind. It was only in 1860 that wine-making 

 became an occupation in Algeria, yet in three years the 

 quantity produced was no less than one million five 

 hundred thousand imperial gallons, and by 1884 it had 

 risen, to over nineteen million seven hundred thousand 

 gallons. Renowned as Egypt was in the days of the 

 Pharaohs and the Ptolemys for its wine, none at all is 

 now made there, the use of it being forbidden by the 

 Koran. There are plenty of vines. The number is esti- 

 mated at two hundred and twenty-five thousand, of which 

 there are near Alexandria fifty-five thousand, and near 

 Cairo fifty thousand, but the yield of these is employed 

 simply for repast. It is melancholy to reflect that a plant 

 of utility so vast, and capable of cultivation so extended, 

 should have enemies so dire as the oidium and the 

 phylloxera. In this respect, after all, it is by no means 

 exceptional, the apple, the cereals, the potato, being, as 

 well known, assailed, all in their turn, by some kind of 

 destructive malady. 



In countries where the processes which begin with 

 drying the fruit can be put into successful practice, 

 certain kinds of grapes are converted into Raisins, the 

 pleasant form of the sweet gift of the vine which in 

 England is always bound up so specially with thoughts 

 of Christmas. The manufacture is exceedingly ancient, 

 several references to raisins occurring in the historical 

 books of the Old Testament, as in the celebrated story 

 R 



