84 



Wine from Grapes. — Lime and Ashes. 



Vol. VII. 



And that is not all; it is disturbing the order 

 of creation ; it is reducing the profits of the 

 farmer, by destroying the guardians of his 

 crops. 



Now, let me suggest to my fellow-profes- 

 sors of the plough, whether times and cir- 

 cumstances do not demand a general and 

 simultaneous effort to arrest this destructive 

 practice, in all the well settled parts of our 

 country. 



In Pennsylvania, the penalty for hunting 

 on the enclosed land of another, without 

 license from the owner, is forty shillings, 

 $5.33. If farmers would unite in caution- 

 ing all sportsmen against this violation of 

 the law, and in exacting the penalty in case 

 the caution was disregarded, we might rea- 

 sonably hope to see, in a few years, the fea- 

 thered race replenishing their ranks, cheer- 

 ing us with their melody, and guarding our 

 rising crops from the depredation of worms 

 and insects. An Old Farmer. 



From Trans. N. Y. State Ag. Society. 

 Wine from Grapes. 



One word on making wine from grapes of 

 northern growth. None of our grapes, after 

 undergoing the process of scalding in lye, 

 and properly exposing them to the desicca- 

 ting course laid down in the books, or by 

 any other method as yet suggested, will pro- 

 duce the raisin, or any thing approaching 

 to it ; they dry up into a flat shapeless form, 

 consisting of skin and seeds, with a slightly 

 sour and tasteless flavour, which it would be 

 impossible to recognize as the fruit of the 

 vine. Our climate is not genial enough to 

 perfect the saccharine formations in quantity 

 anil perfection, sufficient to make it a strong 

 fermentable article, and which is more fatal 

 still, is the fact, that they do not contain the 

 tartaric acid in any notable degree, or not 

 in sufficient intensity to decompose the sac- 

 charine matter, and produce the liquid known 

 to amateurs as wine. The malic acid seems 

 to predominate, as in the currant, goose- 

 berry and apple, and the juice of our grapes, 

 when fermented, is but cider, with a little of 

 the essential oil peculiar to the grape, suffi- 

 cient to slightly alter its flavour. Even 

 with the tartaric acid and the saccharine 

 added, till its hydromatic weight equals 

 the must of foreign production, still, dis- 

 guise it as you will, the result is cider — a 

 fine, strong, peculiar flavoured cider; and 

 none of all the kinds yet produced in Ame- 

 rica, could for one instant impose upon a 

 mere tyro in wine-tasting. I have drunk 

 of most of tln> samples produced in this 

 country. The Vevay — the North-Carolina 



Scuppernongs, and of eight varieties pro- 

 duced by the celebrated major Adlum of 

 Georgetown, D. C, some of which was a 

 fine palatable liquor; but the most of all 

 that I have seen, were inferior to the weak 

 clarets of Bordeaux, or the red wines of the 

 Rhine; in which opinion I am confirmed by 

 every one within my acquaintance, who has 

 investigated the subject. Whoever, there- 

 fore, makes an outlay to form a vineyard, 

 with the intention of making wines, will be 

 wofully disappointed, and the attempts will 

 result in a total failure. 



If the monster intemperance is, by the 

 exertions of the humane, and the force of 

 public opinion, to be bound hand and foot, 

 and cast into the abyss of annihilation and 

 forgetfulness, it is a wise provision of the 

 God of nature, that one great source of that 

 seductive and prevailing evil, should be 

 wanting in the productions of our free and 

 happy land. L. B. Langworthy. 



Lime and Ashes. 



The " American Farmer" says, that the 

 means most freely used by a farmer in Mary- 

 land, in the system which has communicated 

 to a poor and exhausted estate, life and acti- 

 vity and productiveness, great crops of corn 

 and wheat, root crops, fat hogs and cattle, a 

 good garden, vines and fruit trees bending 

 under their heavy burdens, has been the free 

 use of oyster-shell lime! He commenced, 

 as others have done, with ashes ; and found 

 them to pa7j well; but after trial and compa- 

 rison of out-lay and results, he found lime to 

 be, in the " long run," the most economical. 

 The race between them was something like 

 that between the hare and the tortoise — the 

 ashes got the start of the lime a long way; 

 but the lime, like the tortoise, made up in 

 lastingness, for want of quickness at the 

 jump; and finally he has in a great measure 

 given up the use of ashes for that of lime. 

 On one lot of stiff white oak land, which 

 would nt>t have yielded as much per acre, as 

 the team consumed while ploughing it, there 

 was a luxuriant crop of Indian corn growing, 

 after a good crop of wheat last year, with no 

 help but 100 bushels of oyster-shell lime to 

 the acre; spread in autumn before the land 

 was fallowed for wheat. 



It would seem, however, that this same 

 farmer has no great reason to find fault with 

 ashes; for a sinolo lot of five acres of land, 

 which cost him $20 an acre, and on which 

 $20 an acre of ashes had been spread, and 

 which wh'>n he took it in hand, would not 

 have yielded a bushel to the acre, had paid 

 him back his $20 purchase money, his $20 

 tor ashes, and both of them three times over. 



