106 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a great deal better than we could. We have the sun gradu- 

 ally growing warmer and warmer, until it has attained its 

 highest temperature. It is not that. But you take a day in 

 summer, with the wind south, and your thermometer way up 

 among the nineties ; then comes a shower, the wind shifts to 

 the north, and your mercury goes down until at night it is very- 

 chilly. Tliese are the changes to which I refer. 



It seems to me the mildew must be accounted for by the wet 

 season. You will find that the mildew extended back into the 

 interior as far as Syracuse, N. Y. At Rochester, they had an 

 exceedingly dry season, and they had no mildew. The Dela- 

 ware ripened perfectly. I was in Missouri, in September, and 

 it was very dry all through that section of country. At Mr. 

 Husmann's place, the vines were free from mildew. The 

 Catawbas in the older vineyards were rotting badly. They had 

 been spurred in very close. The new vineyards, that had only 

 borne three or four years, bore healthy fruit ; and I think in 

 all directions where they had a dry season, there was very little 

 mildew — scarcely any at all. 



I was up at Madison, Wisconsin, and I never saw a finer 

 display of fruit than I saw there. Rogers' Hybrids were very 

 promising. The Delaware grew finely ; ^some one went so far 

 as to say that it grew more than the Concord. Coming back 

 East, I found the grape was a total failure. The excessively 

 wet season must be the cause. 



Professor Agassiz. I was born, and have lived two-thirds of 

 my life in a grape-growing country, and I feel deeply interested 

 in the question, how the grape shall be grown here successfully. 

 But I think it cannot be grown with perfect success until a 

 prejudice which exists throughout the whole country is over- 

 come. It is because I know that it is a prejudice that I would 

 openly speak about it. Wine-growing countries are the regions 

 where temperance prevails ; where there is no drunkenness. 

 They are countries where the traveller is helped to a glass of 

 wine to warm and strehgthen him ; they are countries where 

 the clergyman holds it to be an act of charity to give a glass of 

 wine to him who needs comfort. That is the character of wine- 

 growing countries. Here, the use of wine is considered a sin, 

 and mei^ who use it are considered men not deserving to be in 

 the company of gentlemen. Now, I will say, that before I came 



