74 ESSEX SOCIETY. 



would leave the table, and some would faint, if musk-melons 

 happened to be a part of the dessert. The tomato and rhubarb 

 plant have worked their way to general favor at a much later 

 period. A hundred years hav^e not been numbered since a 

 highly respectable physician in Yirginia, and his family, were 

 thought to have an idiosyncrasy in their constitution, which 

 enabled them to use the tomato as food, while it would operate 

 as a poison upon others, should they partake of it. 



Time and use may produce as great a change in regard to 

 the foxy taste of our grape. Bat even if it should not ; if the 

 foxy taste be a serious objection, a difficulty which cannot be 

 ■overcome, it should be recollected that it is an objection which 

 lies against only a part, and not always the best part of our 

 grapes. Many indeed of those grapes, which have received the 

 name of the fox, have not, as many have supposed, received it 

 because they had anything of this flavor, but because they are in 

 fact destitute of it, and because, having something of the acid in 

 them, they have been ranked with those in the fable which the 

 fox is said to have rejected and defamed, because he found 

 himself unable to reach the branches loaded with this delicious 

 fruit. In the Middle and Southern States, many, some say 

 most, of the native grapes have a rancid, and if you please so 

 to call it, a foxy taste and smell, and receive the name from 

 this circumstance. But it is not so certainly in many parts of 

 this Commonwealth. Here iliz term is frequently applied to 

 an acid fruit, which some call the frost or winter grape. If 

 then, any dislike the foxy flavor, they are under no constraint 

 to cultivate them ; there are many other varieties, and of good 

 qualities, which have nothing of this peculiarity about them. 



Production- of vines. — Vines may be produced by planting 

 seed, putting down layers, setting out portions or cuttings of 

 vines containing two or more joints, by dividing the roots, by 

 engrafting and inoculation. 



By the first process new varieties may be obtained, and per- 

 haps some of the better quality, and a seedling vine, if the fruit 

 be good, is more valuable than one obtained in any other 

 way, but some years must intervene before fruit in any great 

 quantities and in a fully matured state can be secured by this 



