310 THE YEAR-BOOK OF AGRICULTURE. 



wine, with the exception of Imperial Tokay. The real merits of the native wine of North 

 Carolina, then, still need development; age and proper treatment must, in time, produce 

 something ; for the Scuppernong is not destitute of delicate aroma an important quality, 

 indeed. The mode of culture is peculiar : the vines (lawyers, not cuttings) are planted one 

 hundred feet apart ; the main branches have space to run fifty feet each way, at right angles 

 from the centre, before meeting. Each vine may be represented thus, -\-, the laterals inter- 

 lacing over head and forming a canopy. The branches are never pruned, as 'it is said "the 

 vine would bleed to death." Like the vines in Lombardy, these are high-trained, (haul tige,) 

 the lowest branches being eight feet above, and parallel with, the ground. The yield is most 

 abundant, a single vine often bearing thousands of bunches ; the berries small, and but few 

 to the bunch. Instances have been cited of single vines yielding enough grapes to make 

 several barrels of wine, and covering two and a half acres of ground. 



We have seen specimens of native vines of Virginia of excellent quality. The Catawba 

 there is an abundant bearer, and the wine made from it essentially different from that of 

 Ohio. The climate of this State would seem to be peculiarly adapted for the purpose, and 

 the wild and waste land might be turned to profitable account in the production of vines. To 

 Virginia we are indebted for many species already popular, among which we may instance 

 "Norton's Seedling," the "Woodson," and "Cunningham." Here, too, the Bland grape 

 grows abundantly, under the name of the Virginia Muscadel. In Maryland and Delaware, 

 also, a variety of native grapes are cultivated, some of extraordinary productiveness. One 

 vine raised by Mr. Willis, (near Baltimore,) in 1832, yielded twenty-five thousand bunches; 

 and in the following year, Messrs. C. M. Bromwell and R. Monkland certify "that they 

 counted upon it fifty-four thousand four hundred and ninety bunches, omitting small and 

 young ones, which would have added at least three thousand more." 



That part of the United States between the thirty-eighth and forty-fourth parallels of 

 latitude, so far, is entitled to the supremacy in grape-culture. Already the wines of Ohio 

 and Missouri begin to supplant the imported Rhine and Champagne wines here, even at the 

 same prices. Terraces rise above terraces on the hillsides of the Ohio River, and the red 

 bluffs begin to disappear beneath masses of vine foliage and purple clusters of fruit. In 

 Pennsylvania, at the end of the last century, an association was formed for the purpose of 

 cultivating the grape for wine, and vineyards were established at Spring Mill, under the 

 superintendence of Mr. Peter Legoux. This was a failure: foreign vines were tried and 

 abandoned, and finally the wild grape called Schuylkill Muscadel met with temporary 

 success. 



In New Jersey the vine has been cultivated for many years, especially in the neighborhood 

 of Burlington. The soil of some parts of this State is peculiarly adapted for this purpose, 

 and we may hope hereafter for better wines than those she now furnishes under a variety of 

 foreign brands. Still further West, we find that Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan are improv- 

 ing the hint given by Ohio ; in fact, Indiana must be recognised as one of the pioneers ; for, 

 in the beginning of this century, the most considerable quantity of native wine made in the 

 United States was from the Cape or Schuylkill grape of Vevay, Switzerland county, 

 Indiana. 



Missouri already ventures to contest the palm with Ohio. In 1852, the vineyards at 

 Hermann embraced some forty or fifty acres only, and this year we are informed that no less 

 than five hundred are under cultivation there, besides many other vineyards in the interior 

 of this thriving State. At the Crystal Palace Exhibition in New York, six prizes were 

 awarded to vine-growers of Missouri for samples of superior native wines, both Isabella 

 and Catawba, still and sparkling. The last grape is the favorite there, as it is also in Ken- 

 tucky and Tennessee. In St. Louis, the native wines are rapidly supplanting the foreign, 

 especially the sparkling kinds; at the hotels there, the majority of wines on the tables are 

 of home production. 



The two principal wine grapes of Ohio are the Catawba and the Isabella ; the first, how- 

 ever, in the proportion of twenty to one. Both are natives of North Carolina. The first 

 was found and noticed merely as a wild grape, in the year 1802, by Colonel Murray and 

 others, in Buncombe county, North Carolina. There it reposed for upwards of twenty years 



