GRAPE CULTURE. 77 



that lake. I saw in one nurseryman's grounds sixteen hundred 

 thousand cuttings that he had put in in one season, and in the 

 September following he advertised that he could furnish no 

 more — they had all been engaged. But, like the potato mania, 

 which is somewhat alive now, the speculation in vines has come 

 to its head — not that our hillsides are not to be clad like the 

 vine-clad hills of the Rhine yet, but there has been so much 

 speculation and zeal, and, I may add, disappointment has fol- 

 lowed in so many cases, that at the present moment the sale 

 of grape-vines for vineyards has become very dull. And now, 

 without wishing to advocate (although I migh{ be willing to 

 express an opinion) the cultivation of the grape especially for 

 wine, or to recommend its manufacture for common use, I may 

 say that our wine manufacturers at the West are making wines 

 which compare most favorably with the European wines. It 

 was my privilege to act as chairman of the committee, of the 

 American Commissioners at Paris, for the examination of wines, 

 and the Foreign Commissioners had the liberality to say, when 

 we showed them the Ives seedling and the Norton seedling, — 

 grapes which make a legitimate red wine, — they had the liber- 

 ality, and honesty, I might add, to say, " If you can raise such 

 grapes and make such wines in your country, you want none 

 from us." 



But in the cultivation of the grape, more than almost any 

 other fruit, we must select suitable situations and soils. That 

 is the great secret. The grape wants a high, dry, hot location, 

 and there it will always succeed. We have many hillsides in 

 Massachusetts which, if they were only selected properly, would 

 produce as fine grapes as are raised at the West. The only 

 reason why we have not done so well the last few years is 

 because of the superabundance of rain. We have had in the 

 month of September, this year, about thirteen and a half inches 

 of rain, against three and a half inches, the average for the last 

 fifteen years. Under such circumstances, nothing could suc- 

 ceed. But at the West, from Rochester to Wisconsin, where 

 it has been hot and dry, the grape grew with the utmost free- 

 dom, and ripened early ; there was no disease ; everything was 

 propitious. But Providence is not partial in its blessings, and 

 the time will come, as I said the other day in a public meeting, 

 when the West will get a ducking, as we have this year ; then, 



