134 OUR COMMON EBTTITS. 



varieties of vines were planted on the Camden estate near 

 Sydney, N. S. Wales, and they have since been also cul- 

 tivated in some other districts. Several specimens oi 

 wine manufactured at Camden were sent to the Great 

 Exhibition in London in 1851. These wines are said to 

 be very dry, and to have also a tinge of bitterness, which, 

 however, wears off with age. No less than 30 different 

 specimens of S. Australian wine were sent to the Inter- 

 national Exhibition of 1862, and the wine produced in 

 1863 in Queensland greatly exceeded the quantity ob- 

 tained the preceding year, while the demand for it was 

 so rapidly extending that almost all hotels, taverns, and 

 wine merchants supplied it, and the trade in imported 

 wines was beginning to be sensibly affected by the con- 

 sumption of the home-made beverage. The high price, 

 however, which it still maintained, being retailed at from 

 30s. to 40s. the dozen, or Is. a tumbler, had been a great 

 obstacle to its becoming thoroughly popularized. 



As far as can yet be judged), therefore, the quality of 

 the produce of Australian vines seems to be such as to 

 promise that whenever the colonists may be able and 

 willing to turn their attention to its extensive culture, 

 there will be little reason to fear that the climate will 

 offer any obstacle to their success, and we of this quarter 

 of the globe need not therefore be under any apprehen- 

 sion of sharing the fate of ancient Rome, or dread the 

 invasion of some Brennus of the New World, attracted 

 from his own grapeless land by the charms of our vines, 

 and determined no longer to leave us in undisturbed pos- 

 session of such a luxury. There is every prospect, too, 

 that as the reign of the vine extends, the grape will more 

 widely attain its highest glorification, in being dedicated 

 to the noble service of the wine-press ; for this, after all, 

 is the grand use of the vine, and that to which all its 

 other uses are by comparison merely incidental and un- 

 important. Other fruits may please the palate as well, 

 but this is serving a mere material purpose: it is the 

 proud prerogative of the kingly grape to minister to the 

 mind, and though it is true it does not stand quite alone 

 in this, yet it is its lofty distinction to reign supreme over 



