Missouri Sortiailtural Society. 



43 



MISSOUEI HOETICULTUKAL SOCIETY, 



We attended the annual meeting of 

 this society, held at the Temple, cor- 

 ner of Fifth and Walnut streets, vSt. 

 Louis, on the 11th, 12th, 13th and 

 14th of January, but we are sorry to 

 say, were less satisfied with the pro- 

 ceedings than with any one of its 

 former sessions that we attended. Too 

 much time was spent, in our opinion, 

 in reading elaborate essays, and we 

 think members could be much more 

 usefully engaged in practical discus- 

 sions on fruits, their culture, varieties 

 and their success, etc. We confess 

 that we learned much more about our 

 favorite fruit by private conversation 

 with members, outside, than from the 

 discussions and essays. 



But we hope this will in a measure 

 be obviated by the passing of a reso- 

 lution Thursday evening, in accord- 

 ance with which the reading of all 

 essays will be dif^pensed with, but 

 they will be referred to a committee 

 for examination, and if found suitable 

 and useful by them, they will then be 

 published with the proceedings. This 

 will save much precious time, and the 

 essays can bo read and digested at 

 leisure at home, by the members, 

 much better than if they were read 

 before the society. 



The collection of wines exhibited, as 

 far as we tasted them, was very cred- 

 itable to their producers, and although 

 we found but few wines of extra 

 quality, we found still less which were 

 really poor. We give below the re- 

 port of the Wine Committee, and 

 think it a very good and fair one, as 

 far as we have been enabled to judge, 



from the samples we tried. In one 

 point, however, we beg leave to dif- 

 fer with their opinion. It is in regard 

 to the value of ivhite Concord wine, 

 and which they seem to think may 

 yet be the white wine of the country. 

 We cannot think so, although we 

 have tried hundreds of white Con- 

 cords. We think the Concord much 

 better adapted to make a red, astrin- 

 gent wine resembling claret, than 

 white wine, and cannot help hut say 

 that all the red Concords we tried 

 there, suited our taste better than the 

 best white samples of that grape. 

 There is a lack of life, if we may so 

 express ourselves, of sprightliness 

 in the white Concord,, which will fail 

 to please the habitual wine connois- 

 seur; it will clog the palate instead of 

 tickling it. It may do as an indiffer- 

 ent substitute for the Catawba, but 

 only until we have a better one, and 

 we would think our hopes of rivaling 

 the white wines of Europe placed up- 

 on a very unsafe foundation, had we 

 to depend only upon the Concord. 



We do not undervalue the Concord, 

 we think it a sure and profitable 

 variety, which makes a very fair ar- 

 ticle of red wine, but we do not think 

 we do the grapo growing community 

 a service, by overrating it. There is 

 still great room for improvement, and 

 only by seeing things in their true 

 light, can we hope to rival and per- 

 haps excel others, not by saying 

 "Eureka, we have found it." — [Ed. 



REPORT OF THE WINE COMMITTEE. 



The committee appointed by the State 

 Horticultural Society to examine and 



