FRUIT GARDEN. 263 



been spread over many different regions. Indeed, 

 climate alone appears to have prescribed boundaries 

 to its diffusion ; as in Europe we find it successfully 

 cultivated between the 25th and 52d degrees of north 

 latitude, and rarely, if ever, with much advantage 

 beyond these limits. Under favourable circumstan- 

 ces, it attains to a great size and age.* 



Having been cultivated at least from the time of 

 Noah, its varieties are so multiplied as to set even 

 enumeration at^efiance :f a fact, after all, of little 

 importance to our present object, as it is only a 

 very small class of these varieties, and a still smaller 

 proportion of this class, that comes within the scope 

 of the present work. The following is a list of the 

 sorts which, in our opinion, are best adapted to the 

 climate, and fittest for the only use we mean to make 

 of them, that of the dessert : the Chasselas of Fon- 

 tainebleau, the White do., the Violet do., the Black Mus- 

 cat of Jura, the Black do. of the Po, the White do. of 

 do., the Muscat of Alexandria, the Malvoisie of the 

 Po, the Red Hamburg, and the Sweetwater. 



ters has given a very curious and learned account of the progress 

 of the Grape-vine from Persia to Sicily, by the way of Egypt 

 and Greece, in his work entitled Geschichte der Obs. Cult., vol. i. 



* Pliny speaks of a vine 600 years old. Bosc says there are 

 several in Burgundy 400 years old ; and Millar, that " a vineyard 

 is young at 100 years." A vine at North Allerton (in England) 

 covered one hundred and thirty-seven square yards ; another at 

 Hampton Court, one hundred and sixteen ; and a third at Val- 

 entines (in Essex) one hundred and forty-seven. "The Hamp- 

 ton vine ordinarily produces 2200 bunches, averaging a pound 

 each ; and one of its branches measures one hundred and four- 

 teen feet in length." Encyclopaedia of Gardening, p. 843. 



f The most successful attempt yet made at an enumeration 

 of the varieties of the vine may be found in a Spanish work by 

 Don S. Roxas Clemente, Librarian of the Botanic Garden at 

 Madrid. Among the many good things done, or attempted by 

 Bonaparte in France, was the bringing together in a single gar- 

 den (that of the Luxembourg) all the varieties of the vine to be 

 found in that country. The work began in 1801, under the par- 

 ticular directions of Chaptal and Bosc ; and in 1809 three hun- 

 dred sorts had been collected, cultivated, and classed. We have 

 heard with regret that the work was not completed. 



