PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



Since the first edition of this book was submitted to the 

 public, I have examined very carefully the practice it advo- 

 cates and the advice given in connection with my every-day 

 experience, and find nothing, so far, to retract as detail, or 

 add as general principles, but feel further confidence that it 

 is a sure guide to the uninitiated, for whose benefit it was 

 chiefly penned. Still further, I am emboldened to believe 

 that it has done some good, by the many commendations 

 received from persons who have succeeded satisfactorily by 

 explicitly following the directions it contains ; and am pleased 

 to know that it has been the means of simplifying the sub- 

 ject and extending the cultivation of %e grape-vine. 



Twenty years ago very little attention was paid to the 

 subject, further than the planting of a grape-vine in a door- 

 yard, or the cultivating on a small scale in the vineyard. 

 The sorts, too, that were worth growing at all were few, 

 and excepting the exertions of a small number of far-seeing 

 men, the whole matter was little cared for. Notwithstand- 

 ing which, many attempts had been made during the half 

 century previous to this time with a laudable perseverance, 

 but there was nothing really substantial to encourage the 

 bounding enterprise of our national character. 



The great drawback to our progress.was the determina- 

 tion to make the European sorts accommodate themselves 

 to the climate of our eastern States (which they will never 

 do), and the deficiency of natives of good quality. If our 

 German and French vigneres had, at first, set about discover- 

 ing the oest wildings and raising seedlings from them, instead 

 of holding on, so tenaciously, to Fatherland, and our own 

 folk following in their wake, we should have been further 

 ahead than we are at present. However, we are on the 

 right tack now, and in a fair way to realize what has been 



