VINEYARDS. 24:3 



women were prohibited from using wine in any case whatever, under 

 the penalty of death, and men until they had attained the age of 

 thirty years. Cato mentions that the custom among relations of kiss- 

 ing women when they met, was to ascertain by their breath if they 

 had been drinking wine. 



" Pliny gives an account of a renowned Roman who so improved 

 his farm, near the city of Rome, that in one year the product of his 

 vines sold for four hundred thousand sesterses. 



" The vine was highly esteemed by the heathen nations, and the 

 invention of wine was ascribed by the Egyptians to Osiris, by the 

 Latins to Saturn ; and the Greeks elevated Bacchus to the rank of 

 a deity for having brought the vine from Arabia Felix. 



" It is said by Pliny that Bacchus was the first who ever wore a 

 crown, and as the god of vintage, his crown is formed of the vine 

 and its twining branches, bedecked with clusters of fruit. The 

 manufacture of wine was known to the people in the early part of 

 the Christian era, as we are informed that our Saviour, at a wed- 

 ding, changed the water into wine. 



" At several periods of the history of the world, the cultivation of 

 the vine was prohibited by severe laws, but since the twelfth century 

 a new impulse has been given, which extended through all portions 

 of Europe r and we now find the banks of the Rhine, the mountains 

 of Hungary and Switzerland, and the plains of France and Italy 

 cultivated with more than two hundred varieties of the grape. Those 

 most highly esteemed in France for the manufacture of wine, are the 

 Burgundy grapes, three varieties of which produce the champagne 

 wine. The German and Swiss grapes are principally celebrated as 

 wine grapes, and four or five varieties are highly esteemed for their 

 prolific bearing, and regular crops. 



" The Madeira grapes are all celebrated for wine. The table 

 grapes of France are principally the Chasselas, the Frontignac, and 

 other Muscat grapes." Noah planted a vineyard and made wine ; 

 and among the blessings of the promised land are mentioned " wheat, 

 barley, and vine." 



Although we have record of wine being made from a native grape 

 in Florida, as early as 1564, no vineyards of note are spoken of in 

 the United States until those established at Vevay and New Har- 

 mony, Ind., Lexington, Ky., &c , about 1812, the originals of which 

 are now mostly destroyed. 



Jefferson recorded his opinion, that " no nation is drunken where 

 wine is cheap ; and none sober where the dearness of wine substitutes 

 ardent spirits as the common beverage. 1 ' A wish to sustain and 

 exemplify this assertion, if not to exhibit the profitableness of the 

 pursuit, would seem to have held sway in the mines of denizens of 

 the " Rhine of America," i. e., the borders of the Ohio river, above 

 and below Cincinnati, where now, it is probable, over ten thousand 



