Oration delivered before the Agricultural Society. 1 7 



hoping that after growing in our climate, they would retain 

 the flavor peculiar to the grapes in their former foil. I do 

 not know that much fuccefs has followed thefe attempts, except 

 in fmall experiments in gardens and on fruit-walls. I am 

 doubtful what to fay concerning the eflabliffiment of vineyards 

 among us. I fear the weather is too variable, and the winters 

 too cold to allow the fouthern vines to thrive. Yet. in tracing; 

 the vine from Afia, where it firft grew, we find it planted in 

 fucceflion on the iflands of the Archipelago and the fliores of 

 the Mediterranean Sea, until the time of the Emperor Probus, 

 who permitted the planting of it in Cifalpine Gaul, where it 

 had been forbidden before by Domitian and his predecelfors, 

 whence it was carried north of the Alps to regions formerly 

 believed to be too unhofpitable for its growth. It has fince 

 by degrees become naturalized to the countries where it now 

 lives. It is true that fevcral learned men have entertained an 

 idea that the climates of France and Germany have become 

 more mild than anciently they were, and there are many well 

 authenticated fatts in hiitory to corroborate the opinion. Still, 

 fomething perhaps may be done by domefticating our indio-e- 

 nous vines, of which there are feveral forts, and meliorating 

 them by kind cultivation j or if European flioots muft be fent 

 for, they fbould be brought from the northern provinces of 

 France, or the weftern dominions of Germany, whofe climates 

 more nearly refemble our own. 



The white-mulberry tree is already growing in our State, 

 and is faid to be cultivated to confiderable extent in Con- 



C 



