AND WINE MAKING, 235 



Both products retain, to a certain extent, the pleasant 

 acidity and the sugar contained in the grape, yet neither 

 can compare for refreshing, invigorating qualities, with 

 pure, fermented wine, and are only poor substitutes 

 for it. 



THE GRAPE CUBE. 



The State of California has numerous summer and 

 health resorts, where the wealthy and wearied denizens 

 of the cities go with their families, during the warm 

 months, to recruit their energies, impaired by the activ- 

 ities of business and city life. Yet strangely little has 

 ever been done, either by the managers of the summer 

 resorts or the physicians, to bring grapes into consump- 

 tion as a hygienic agent. They are the most healthful 

 fruit known, and are universally recognized as such in 

 Europe, and recommended by the most eminent physi- 

 cians. Yet a hygienic article of diet would seem to be 

 more needed on this dyspeptic continent than in any 

 part of Europe. Thousands flock annually to vine- 

 growing districts of the Rhine, the Danube and the 

 Moselle, for the grapes, which are regarded as a univer- 

 sal remedy for impaired digestion, and diseases of the 

 bowels and kidneys. Each one begins with half a pound 

 daily, eaten fresh from the vines, increasing gradu- 

 ally to four or five pounds a day, before the season is 

 over. Is it not strange that here, where so many suffer 

 from gastric derangement, and the remedy is at their 

 door, pure, fresh and palatable, it is so little used, and 

 so rarely recommended by physicians ? If the proprie- 

 tors of our summer resorts would each have a few acres 

 of vineyard, which would furnish their guests with 

 grapes at all times through the autumnal months, fresh 

 and cool every morning, it would be safe to predict that 

 their mineral waters would enjoy greater celebrity and 

 their resorts more popularity. But as long as Americans 

 lubsist on hot biscuit, pies and divers abominations from 



