No. 9. 



The Vineyards of the Ohio. 



289 



pervadinpf principle of her tillage is to make 

 a farm like a garden. Even the pasturages 

 are so subdued and fertilized that they yield 

 four-fold more than the same land in less 

 cultivated countries. It is conceded that ten 

 acres of the best vegetables would maintain 

 a larger stock of grazing cattle, than forty 

 acres of common farm or coarse grass. The 

 lease of land on long terms, based on im- 

 provement, the payment of rent in money, 

 or kind combined with money, the restraint 

 not to sub-let, and the powerful motive to 

 obtain profitable crops, joined with habits of 

 sobriety, forethought, and a well balanced 

 economy, have elevated the Belgian peasan- 

 try far above the like operatives on the con- 

 tinent. 



Flemish farms vary very much in size in 

 the northern parts of the country, but rarely 

 exceed fifty acres. You often meet with 

 farms of twenty acres, on which you will 

 find a pair of fine horses, four to six milch 

 cows, a farmery that contains a good and 

 substantial dwelling house, out houses and 

 stables, kept with wonderful neatness and 

 economy. Within the area, and below the 

 rural buildings, is placed the urine tank, that 

 receives the liquid discharges from the do- 

 mestic animals, and hard by is the compost 

 bed, on which is deposited whatever can form 

 manure. 



Here permit me to say, that on a farm 

 which I had the pleasure to examine, that 

 contained but 45 acres, there were fed two 

 horses, fifteen milch cows, and several hei- 

 fers to supply stock, besides five cows and 

 some calves fattened off yearly ; some few 

 miserable sheep and long-legged and slab- 

 sided hogs, and the master and family, with 

 six male and female domestics. The pro- 

 duce of the stock of live animals was not the 

 moiety of the real income of the farm. The 

 surface was teeming with artificial grasses, 

 wheat, rye, rape, and flax, all richly remu- 

 nerating the indomitable perseverance and 

 unwearied industry of the cultivator. The 

 Cattle and horses were continually stalled; 

 fed in summer on green clover, and in win- 

 ter with esculent roots relieved by meal made 

 from small grain. But what was an inex- 

 haustible source of fertility to this productive 

 spot, took its rise from the careful preserva- 

 tion of all vegetable and animal matter, to- 

 gether with the excrementitious substances 

 of every thing living within his shed. And 

 what in other countries is wasted, is here 

 an article of commerce — I allude to urine, 

 which in a single cow is worth ten dollars a 

 year. 



No wonder then, that the net returns to 

 the cultivators of the soil will average more 

 than a quarter of the value of the grass pro- 



duce. The deduction consists in the charges 

 of production, such as the price of seed, 

 manure, labor, interest on capital, repairs to 

 buildings and farming utensils, or a rent to 

 the proprietor, the public burden of taxation, 

 and the annual loss by the decay of strength 

 and mortality' of the domestic animals — nor 

 is the cost of the food of men and beasts to 

 be neglected — in this account. — New York 

 Affricultural Transactions. 



From Downing's Horticulturist. 

 The Vineyards of the Ohio. 



In writing upon the Vine, it is impossible 

 to forget the many associations of antiquity 

 which are inseparably connected with it. In 

 sacred history, these are especially interest- 

 ing. In all time, has the vine, and the en- 

 joyment of its fruit, been regarded as a bless- 

 ing especially adapted to the health, comfort 

 and luxury of man. "And Judah and Israel 

 dwelt safeh', every man under his own vine 

 and under his own fig tree." 



The vine seems to have been given to 

 mon in a more perfect state than most other 

 fruits; for though many of the fine varieties 

 are the result of patient cultivation, the finest 

 wild grapes of either Syria or America are 

 truly delicious, when compared with wild 

 crabs or wild peaches. Its culture and en- 

 joyment, in the earliest ages of the world, 

 were considered synonymous with the pros- 

 perity and happiness of man: "and they 

 shall build houses and inhabit them, and 

 they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit 

 of them." 



Though the world has grown old, the pa- 

 ternal love of vineyards has not in the least 

 diminished in the heart of man. We are 

 just as busy, at least in this part of the new 

 world, with planting vineyards as were Noah 

 and his immediate descendants; and I may, 

 therefore, I trust, be pardoned for giving 

 some detail of the early history of this 

 branch of agriculture in the valley of the 

 Ohio. 



If we take a retrospective glance of fifty 

 or sixty years — a period the scenes of which 

 are perfectly within the recollection of some 

 yet on the active stage of life — when the 

 unexplored wilds of the Ohio — the now in- 

 deed beautiful Ohio — were penetrated by a 

 few hardy adventurers, seeking to better 

 their condition, with but little to cheer them 

 in their dreary course, but encountering, at 

 every step, the shrieks of wild beasts, and 

 their but little less ferocious companion, the 

 Red Man, we shall have some data from 

 which to start. The great abundance of 

 the wild grape, found indigenous in the for- 

 est, and the luxuriancy of their growth, 



