308 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



The settlement of El Paso extends from the Falls of the Rio Grande on the north tt the 

 Presidio on the south, a distance of twenty-two miles, and is one continuous orchard and 

 garden, embracing within its area an industrious and peaceable population of at least eight 

 thousand. This spacious valley is about midway between Santa F6 and Chihuahua, and is 

 isolated from the other Mexican settlements by the mountains which rise on the east and 

 west, and close into the river on the north and south. The breadth of the valley is about 

 ten miles. The most important production of this district is grapes, from which are annu- 

 ally manufactured not less than two hundred thousand gallons of perhaps the best and rich- 

 est wine in the world. This wine is worth tv, o dollars per gallon, and constitutes the princi- 

 pal source of revenue to the country. Great quantities of grapes are also dried in clusters 

 and preserved for use during the winter. In this state they are considered superior to the 

 best raisins that are imported from Europe. 



The great Mustang grape of Texas is also said to be a wine grape of superior quality. It 

 grows in the greatest profusion, without cultivation, in every part of Texas, and upon all 

 varieties of soil. The wine produced from it is said to resemble port. Not alone in Cali- 

 fornia and Texas, but throughout the entire South, do native grapes flourish in wonderful 

 luxuriance. The sea-islands that fringe the coasts from Norfolk to the Florida reefs are 

 embroidered with wild vines, laden with clusters, as well as the margins of rivers that inter- 

 sect the mainland. Florida abounds in this delicious fruit ; in Alabama, grape-culture is 

 already exciting much attention, and the native grapes produce not only wines of most 

 excellent quality, but also a very great variety of wines. Their cultivation is very easy, and 

 the vines are abundant bearers. A gentleman, in a letter to the "Alabama Planter," says: 

 "A vineyard at maturity, say the fourth year, would be good for from five hundred to seven 

 hundred and fifty gallons ; the seventh, for one thousand gallons ; the Scuppernong much 

 more, to the acre. Among other properties possessed by our native grape, the quantity of 

 vinous matter they possess is most remarkable. A bushel of bunches, as pulled from the 

 vine, will give three gallons of wine, and after undergoing a second operation, about one 

 gallon more of a lighter but most agreeable wine. It would take a third pressure to pro- 

 duce the meagre drink with which, in part, they feed the peasantry in France who tend the 

 vintage." 



The woods of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas abound in varieties of wild vines that 

 yield masses of fruitage, renowned as raccoon, bear, bull, chicken, and fox grapes. As yet, 

 we have had no specimens of wines of these celebrated brands. One of these wild vines has 

 been successfully cultivated already, under the name of "Eland's Madeira," and doubtless 

 there are many species which, by the skill of the vine-dresser, may be made to yield an 

 agreeable variety of wines; in fact, our chief dependence must be upon our indigenous 

 grapes, that are already acclimated by nature's unerring training. It is well to observe that 

 a grape may produce a superior wine in one district, and yet be of little value in another; 

 so that although one species may disappoint the cultivator in Arkansas, that is no reason 

 why it should be rejected by his brother in Tennessee or Louisiana, or vice vers&. 



In Georgia, the luscious Muscadines gathered in the wild state produce a wine of con- 

 siderable merit ; as yet no attempt has been made to give them a formal training, except 

 here and there upon a small scale. This is also the case in South Carolina. 



North Carolina is the natal soil of the Catawba, the Herbemont, and the Scuppernong ; 

 the first two of these unquestionably owe their reputation to the skill of the cultivators of 

 Ohio and New York, and have only a limited growth in their native State ; but Scuppernong 

 vineyards are found from Currituck, on the extreme north, to the southern counties on the 

 Cape Fear River, and extend inland almost to the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains ; while 

 so various are the qualities of wine produced, that some kinds command three or four dol- 

 lars per gallon, and some kinds can be purchased for five or six dollars a barrel ! There are 

 two species of this grape the best having a white, silvery skin, with a rich metallic lustre, 

 while the inferior kind bears a small, black berry. Mr. Longworth says, " The black Scup- 

 pernong bears from one to four berries on a bunch, and would, in times of war, if lead be 

 scarce, be as valuable, even when fully ripe, as the Fox grape, for bullets. The white Scup- 

 pernong, also, has a very small bunch, and is a better grape than the black. But the skin 



