SSft- VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



wine, we know that they must have been ripened by 

 the natural temperature of the chmate, as artificial 

 heat was not resorted to for the ripening of grapes 

 till the early part of the last century ; and then tlie 

 heat was applied merely to the other side of the wall 

 on which the vines were trained : nor is it till about 

 the middle of the same century that we have any 

 account of vines being covered with glass. Professor 

 Martyn is an advocate for the renewal of grape cul- 

 ture in this country for wine. For that purpose he 

 recommends that the vines should be trained very 

 near the ground, he having found that, by this method 

 of training, the berries were much increased in size, 

 and also ripened earlier. The same method is pur- 

 sued in the northern part of France, where it is found 

 to be successful. 



The culture of the grape, as an article of husbandry, 

 extends over a zone about two thousand miles in 

 breadth, that is, from about the twenty-first to the 

 fiftieth degree of north latitude ; and reaching in 

 length from the western shores of Portugal, at least 

 to the centre of Persia, and probably to near the 

 sources of the Oxus and the Indus. Farther north 

 than that, it does not ripen so as to be fit for the 

 making of wine ; and farther south, it seems to be 

 as much injured by the excessive heat. The best 

 wines are made about the centre of the zone ; the 

 wines towards the north being harsh and austere, 

 and the grapes towards the south being better adapted 

 for drying and preserving as raisins. Thus, in 

 Spain, while the wine of Xeres, in the Sierra Morena 

 (the real Sherry), is an excellent wine, and while 

 that of the ridge of Apulxarras, in Granada, is very 

 tolerable, the grapes of the warm shores about Ma- 

 laga, and in Valentia, are chiefly fit only for raisins. 

 So, also, while the slopes of Etna, and those of the 

 mountains in Greece, furnish some choice vines, the 



