THE GEAPE. 117 



pressed, and left to ferment, are considered all the better 

 for the process. The leaves are also used in Egypt to 

 envelope balls of hashed meat, one of the most common 

 dishes at good tables there, and as for this purpose they 

 must be used young, they are often sold dearer than even 

 the grapes. In this country they are similarly employed 

 in the roasting of wheat-ears. The lees of wine furnish 

 cream of tartar, the acid of grapes being chiefly tartaric, 

 though malic acid also exists in them in small quantities ; 

 while their other chief constituent, the sugar of grapes, 

 differs from common sugar in containing a smaller quan- 

 tity of carbon. 



Too valuable for its living products ever to be destroyed 

 for the sake of its mere substance, yet the wood of the 

 vine is capable of being turned to good account whenever 

 it does fall into the hands of the carpenter, being both 

 beautiful and extremely durable; for, though Ezekiel 

 speaks of it contemptuously as "meet for no work," and 

 only fit for fuel, classic authors tell of statues and temple 

 columns formed from it ; Evelyn records, in his Sylva, that 

 the great doors of the Cathedral of Ravenna were in his 

 day discovered to be made of vine planks, some of which 

 were 12 ft. long and 15 in. broad ; and the museum at 

 Versailles contains a table more than 2 ft: wide, formed 

 of a single piece of vine wood. From the charred stalks 

 of old vines, too, is made the " blue black " of the artist 

 and also the finest printer's ink. 



In spring, when the sap rises, the circulation of the 

 vine is so active, even to its very extremities, that great 

 care has to be taken to have all the pruning over before 

 the vernal warmth calls forth this flow in its veins, or 

 every part touched with the knife would pour out a vital 

 stream, and the vine would actually " bleed " to death. 

 This notable sappiness reaches its fullest extent in a 

 variety called the Vitis Indica, Caribbean Vine, or Inane 

 des Voyageurs, the branches of which are often 200 ft. 

 long, and of so dropsical a constitution that, if a wound 

 be made in one of its limbs (which are about the thick- 

 ness of a man's arm), and another cut about 3 or 4 ft. 

 lower down, in less than half a minute nearly a pint of 



