CULTURE OF TUK VINK IN THE UNITED STATES. 107 



NEW STAPLES RECOMMENDED. 

 THE CULTURE OF THE VINE IN THE UNITED STATES. 



The average crop of wheat in England, one year with another, has been es- 

 timated at eighteen millions of quarters, or one himdred and forty-four millions 

 of bushels. The whole crop of grain in the United Slates was estimated by 

 the census of 1840 at — 



Wheat ,. 84.8-:;3,270 bushels. 



Barley 4,]G1..')04 



Oat.s 12.3,071.341 



live 7.291,734 



Indian Corn 377,531,875 



Making: a total of grain 596,879,726 bushels. 



But tliere is nothing more remarkable in the husbandry of any country than 

 the liability of the wheat crop in England to be seriously affected and diminished, 

 to a degree sometimes amounting to a national calamity, by the occurrence of 

 only a few days of unfavorable weather ; thus making the supply of the staff 

 of life either very abundant or very scarce, according to the uncertain and un- 

 controllable vicissitudes of the seasons. It happened thus that while the wheat 

 crop in 1844 was estimated at one hundred and ninety-two millions of bushels, 

 that of the next year, 1845, was only one hundred and twenty millions, making 

 a difference in that comparatively small country, of seventy-two millions of 

 bushels ; the former year yielding forty-eight millions of bushels above, and the 

 second twenty-four millions below an average crop ! 



The vast extent of our country, however, having several single States larger 

 than England, exempts us from these extreme fluctuations ; because the defi- 

 ciencies of one State may be supplied by the redundance of another. The bale- 

 ful influences that may prevail over a small territory like that of England are not 

 likely to spread over a vastly greater geographical extent, the organized por- 

 tions of the United States being more than twenty times the size of England ; 

 and besides, the greater diversity of our great staple-crops renders less precari- 

 ous the hopes and condition of our agriculturists, and yet more the condition of 

 those who have to buy bread ; for, in addition to all, or nearly all, the great sta- 

 ple crops of England, we have our crops of cotton, and sugar, and tobacco, rice 

 and Indian corn ; and it is well worthy of inquiry, considering how low the prices 

 of provisions are likely to continue, what stands in the way of extenditig our 

 crops of oil, of flax, hemp, silk, madder, and the grape and grape wine ? 



Were we to pay respect to the signs which Nature herself has hung out on 

 every highway and by-way throughout the country, we could not fail to recog- 

 nize in them so many proclamations of our ability not only to produce abundance 

 olivine, but silk also, both of which we still get from France to the tune of so 

 many millions of dollars annually. Unfortunately, however, instead of being a 

 nation of wine-drinkers, and thereafter a sober people, as all wine-drinking peo- 

 ple are, we have learned from our ancestors to substitute for the grape and the 

 refined and refining juices thereof, still-burnt, inebriating whisky and stupefying 

 malt liquors. Walk or ride, in almost any direction over a great part of our 

 country, and there you meet the mulberry and the vine, flourishing in spontane- 



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