14 INTRODUCTION. 



country in June ; and the fruit, wliich is of the berry- 

 kind, attains such maturity as the season and situa- 

 tion admit, by the middle or end of September. The 

 berry or grape is generally globular, but often ovate, 

 oval, oblong, or finger-shaped; the colors green, white, 

 red, yellow, amber, and black, or a variegation of two 

 or more of these colors. The skin is smooth, the 

 pulp and juice of a dulcet, poignant, elevated, gen- 

 erous flavor. Every berry ought to enclose five small 

 heart or pear-shaped stones; though, as some gen- 

 erally 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 thick- 

 ness of its skin, and texture of the flesh, the lightest 

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

 water or muscadine." — Loudon^ s EncyclopcBdia of 

 Gardening. 



Of all the productions of the vegetable world, 

 which the skill and ingenuity of man have rendered 

 conducive 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 ex- 

 emption from all those adverse contingencies which 

 blight and diminish the produce of other fruit-bearing 

 trees, — its astonishing vegetative powers, — its won- 

 derful fertility, — 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 pro- 

 mote the comfort 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, 

 and the symbol of happiness. The pages of Scrip- 

 ture abound with allusions to the fertility of the vine 

 as emblematical of prosperity; and it is emphatically 



