132 OTJE COMMON FRUITS. 



Champagne, while it is said by some that native wine i 

 beginning to supplant imported Rhenish and Champagn 

 even at equal prices. Other vineyards, too, being estal 

 lished, and new varieties of grapes attracting attentioi 

 which ripen earlier, and are therefore suited to two c 

 three degrees further N., by 1853 the vine had outstrippe 

 the tobacco-plant in the relative money value of their re 

 spective produce within the boundary of the U. States 

 for in the Patent Office Report that year it was state 

 that the annual value of the wines grown in the State 

 amounted to 2,000.000 dollars, whereas the value of th 

 tobacco was only 1,990,000 ; and as it is said that thes 

 wines are quite distinct in flavour from any made in En 

 rope, and have besides the special peculiarity that no spu 

 rious compound can effectually imitate them, it seems prc 

 bable that they will in the course of time become yet mor 

 profitable as an article of export. The American Yea 

 Book of Agriculture, in giving some details respectin 

 native beverages, mentions that the most expensive win 

 in Europe, Tokay, contains also the least amount of alcohc 

 9'85 per. cent ; but that the still Catawba of Americ 

 shows only a per centage of 9 50, in fact, the lowest pe 

 centage of spirit to be found in any wine in the work 

 S. America, too, abounds in vineyards, and wine is mad 

 both in Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, and Chili. 



Although Asia is the native home of the vine, it i 

 only in some parts of that continent that it thrives, th 

 uninterrupted heat of Southern India not admitting o 

 the fruit coming to perfection. It is true that even i] 

 the north it is often excessively hot, the thermometer i] 

 May standing at mid-day at 140 in the sun, and 110 

 even in the soldiers' tents in Cabul and Candahar ; yet ii 

 no part of the world are grapes more delicious than i 

 these places. Mr. Atkinson mentions that on the 30t] 

 June he saw donkeys laden with panniers of fine purpl 

 grapes, at the very same time that the paper on whici 

 he was writing was actually curling up with the excea 

 sive heat as crisply as though before a blazing fire. Di 

 Lindley, however, explains the phenomenon of the via 

 thriving in such a climate by the observation that it i 



