14 INTRODUCTION. 



the open air in this country in June ; and the fruit, 

 which is of the berry kind, attains such maturity as 

 the season and situation admit, by the middle or end of 

 September. The berry or grape is generally globular, 

 but often ovate, oval, oblong, or finger-shaped ; the 

 colours green, white, red, yellow, amber, and black, or 

 a variegation of two or more of these colours. The 

 skin is smooth, the pulp and juice of a dulcet, poign- 

 ant, elevated, generous flavour. Every berry ought 

 to enclose five small heart or pear-shaped stones ; 

 though, as some generally fail, they have seldom more 

 than three, and some varieties as they attain a certain 

 age, as the ascalon, or sultana raisin, none. The 

 weight of a^ berry depends not only on its size, but on 

 the thickness of its skin, and texture of the flesh, the 

 lightest being the thin-skinned and juicy sorts, as the 

 sweet water or muscadine." London's Encyclopedia of 

 Gardening. 



Of all the productions of the vegetable world, which 

 the skill and ingenuity of man have rendered con- 

 ducive to his comfort, and to the enlargement of the 

 sphere of his enjoyments, and the increase of his 

 pleasurable gratifications, THE VINE stands forward 

 as the most pre-eminently conspicuous. Its quickness 

 of growth, the great age to which it will live, so great 

 indeed as to be unknown, its almost total exemption 

 from all those adverse contingencies which blight and 

 diminish the produce of other fruit-bearing trees, 

 its astonishing vegetative powers, its wonderful fer- 

 tility, and its delicious fruit, applicable to so many 

 purposes, and agreeable to all palates, in all its varied 

 shapes, combine to mark it out as one of the greatest 

 blessings bestowed by Providence to promote the com- 

 fort and enjoyments of the human race. 



From the remotest records of antiquity, the vine 

 has been celebrated in all ages as the type of plenty 



