THE CULTURE OP THE GRAPE. 177 



ceed European iu yield, yet they fall far short in strength of 

 the juice yielded, and therefore corresponding keeping in- 

 gredients must be used." He is in the habit of adding " a 

 plenty of sugar, or brandy, or both," with these ingredients. 

 Mr. Weller makes a fine wine with grapes which are partly 

 unripe ; this is what he says of it : " made, September seven- 

 teenth, thirty-three gallons, composed as follows — of five bush- 

 els of White Scuppernong grapes, half green ones, two bushels 

 of Purple Scuppernong, two and a half bushels of common or 

 bunch grapes of the woods ; fermented, after mashing (with 

 a machine of two wooden rollers,) two hours ; juice strained 

 through folds of a woolen blanket, as it run from the press ; 

 twenty pounds of common brown sugar then added, and eight 

 gallons of good apple brandy, and turned into a new cask, fu- 

 migated with a sulphur match." This wine " sold readily, 

 after being racked off, for two dollars a gallon, under the 

 name of Weller's Scuppernong Champaigne." He further 

 says of the quality : " my wine, Avith no other ingredient than 

 sugar, or pure spirit, ever added, circulated in this region, 

 and other parts of our country, is pronounced by the best 

 judges, to be more unequivocally pleasant, healthful, and 

 medicinal, than any foreign. Persons in delicate health have 

 found essential benefit from its use ; and, I add, that the 

 wine made with pure spirits, as a medicated medicine, is 

 more generally approved, than that made with sugar." 



" Mr. Weller's plan of planting and training has been, to 

 plant the vines, the Scuppernong, twenty feet apart, and 

 other kinds, ten ; " to lead them up on posts, six or eight 

 feet high, and then sideways, on trellises and scaffolding, so 

 that, at length, underneath the canopies, nothing is to be seen, 

 for six or eight feet from the ground, but the main vine stems 

 and supportmg posts." He adds : " but I now consider 

 twenty feet too near, for the Scuppernongs, thirty or forty 

 being better, unless it is intended to remove every other one, 

 before they become too large." He saves all the leaves of 

 the vines, and digs them into the vineyard, for manure. Mr= 

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