24 



WINK. 



Plate No. IT shows a good plan for training before a low wall, or 

 fence, or on a low trellis. By taking sufficient time one vine, in this 

 ray, may be made to extend to great length ; but this is not advisa- 

 Rble. Plate No. IS shows the same plan restricted to its proper limits. 

 Plate No. 22 shows half the same vine pruned, ready for the beginning 

 of the ne.xt season. 



T'.'.e arms of a vine may be extendad in length, but the productive- 

 ness can not be greatly increased by increase of the height of the bear- 

 ing canes. To increase the height, or to cover a wall or building to 

 any desirable height, a plan, with successive stages, has been devised, 

 by wUch this plan can be built into a system, as shown in Plate No. 

 20. Plate No. 22 s!iows one of the best vineyard plans. Plate No. 19 

 shows a plan of iedding in vineyards. For full explanations of these 

 and many other plans see Illustkated Cataloqce, and Landmarks, in 

 which the subject is more thoroughly treated than in any single publi- 

 cation of any country. No engravings have ever been executed that 

 can compare with those given, for truth, clearness, and accuracy. 



Wine. 



Wise has been a most esteemed production in all countries where 

 vines have been found to thrive ; and a good vineyard tlie most desir- 

 able of possessions. 



There is no other branch of cultivation which so largely calls forth 

 Into full action all of the excellent spirit of man in his daily avoca- 

 tion, and in which the employment of all of the most manly qualities 

 of tiie cultivator are so immediately and directly rewarded with a 

 prize that is congenial to exalted and refined perceptions. Tliis is 

 the most important Wesson which our rapid survey of France, in rela- 

 tion to the cultivation of the vine teaches with a living power that 

 can not leave the question in doubt, and is such a solution as all good 

 men must require before giving encouragement or even countenance 

 to its introduction to our country for wine. 



A beverage from the grape has been often made by very rude people, 

 but good wine has always been the production of refinement and cul- 

 tivation, and can only be sustained by a people advanced in the arts, 

 knowledge, and elegancies of life. It belongs to quiet enjoyment as 

 strong wine does to revelry and high excitement. 



Those wines which contain a large percentage of alcohol, either nat- 

 nrally or by addition, rnay be called wines of intoxication; and the 

 amount of alcohol which they contain may vary from eight to twenty 

 per cent, and even more. 



Those that contain little of alcohol, but cheer and refresh by their 

 generous qualities, without inebriation, may be called wines of refresh- 

 ment, and by those who can appreciate their good qualities they are 

 rightly characterized as precious ; for there is nothing so grateful and 

 renovating to the whole man, when suitably taken, as excellent wine. 

 Its beneficial influence is not transient, but pro^iotes the healthful ac- 

 tion of all the vital powers. , 



These wines contain only from five to seven per cent of alcohol, but 

 so combined with other principles that the alcoholic action is little, if 

 at all, distinctively felt, and are never used for purposes of dissipa- 

 tion. Their finer qualities are never fully appreciated, except by those 

 whose tastes have been cultivated by their use. 



Brandy, mixed with pure, delicate wines, not only destroys all of 

 that freshness, delightful perfume and flavor which renders them in 

 their excellence estimable beyond comparison with any other refresh- 

 ment, but it changes their character from that of the most genial and 

 invigorating restoratives, grateful to the stomach, soothing and reno- 

 vating, to that of a stimulating excitant whose primary action at best 

 5s not pleasant, and whose secondary action is attended by feverish 

 depression, headache, impaired tone of stomach, and general derange- 

 ment of the system. The evil of the adulteration is not lessened by 

 being made in the form of sugar added to the juice before fermenta- 

 tion. 



Good wine is the produce of good grapes, only, and the excellence 

 of wine depends upon the precious qualities of the grape, which no 

 other fruit can produce ; and these qualities, in sufficient degree and 

 perfection to produce eslimable wine, are only found in the best kinds 

 of grapes, and not In these exce])t when brought to a good degree of 

 maturity, under the conditions that are favorable to the development 

 •f their excellent qualities. 



Although this exquisite flavor b a delightful characteristic of our 

 best grapes in which they are unequalled among fruit, it must be borne 

 in mind that their chief excellence does not consist mainly in this 

 flavor, only as it is indicative of the higher qualities of invigoration 

 and refreshment which are never found without it. It may be said t-o 

 be their physiognomy — the manifestation of their nature— and bears 

 the same relation to their essence that the expression of a counte- 

 nance does to character. In both cases rich enjoyment is communi- 

 cated by the delightful expression of the qualities of the heart, teaching 

 us where to " find the friends whose value is inestimable." 



Grapes to produce wine must be rich in sugar and tartaric acid, and 

 be free from malic acid. Our coarse grapes, such as Hartford Prolific, 

 Concord, Creveling, etc., are not only destitute of the finer qur;litieg, 

 and poor in sugar and tartaric acid, but besides the nauseating offens- 

 iveness of their skins, they possess a damaging amount of malic acid 

 in their unripe center; hence, these kinds have never been able to pro- 

 duce wine that has deserved the name. The kinds of grapes must be 

 such as furnish all ilie excellent qualiiies of the tcine, and none but 

 those of high excellence, and with that excellence fully developed, can 

 make good wine; for wine is but the juice of grapes changed by fer- 

 mentation, and does not admit of any other change, or any addition, 

 without destruction of its character. 



Beverages which are called wine are often made of grapes that are 

 not wine-bearing, (Vitis Yinifera,) and also of various fruits and acid 

 juices. 



We have Rhubarb wine. Tomato wine, Strawberry, Raspberry, Black- 

 berry, Elderberry, and Currant wines, all of which are made alcoholic 

 in some degree, by tlie addition of sugar that is suffered to undergo 

 the alcoholic fermentation, or by the addition of alcohol direct, in the 

 form of some Kind "of spirits. 



And such is the case with the syrups or cordials named, from what- 

 ever material they may be constructed. No one ever becomes habitu- 

 ally a drinker of them for refreshment, for they are only unsatisfying 

 seductions to the palate, and yield none of that grateful stomachic re- 

 freshment, to call forth the feeling of friendship toward them. If 

 their use is persisted in, the alcoholic stimulant wiil be the object 

 sought, and the taste and feelings will soon begin to demand it in the 

 more simple and direct form of ardent spirits. 



The qualities wliich give value to pure, rich, high-flavored grapes 

 are still more distinctively perceptible in the wine than in the fruit, 

 when the vinification is well conducted ; and the taste that becomes 

 onee well attuned to the enjoyment of the wine in which these qualities 

 are developed and preserved, can not turn to alcoholic stimulation, for 

 it destroys all of tlie enjoyment which has been received from the 

 wine, and the refreshing delight and renovation which the whole being, 

 through the stomach, receives from that, have no resemblance to in- 

 toxicating excitement. 



The first real wine produced in this country was made from the Her- 

 bemont grape by Mr. Nicholas Herbemont, at Columbia, South Caro- 

 lina. Soon after Major Adlum made one specimen of Catawba wine at 

 Washington. A little later, Mr. J. J. Dufour, while making great ef 

 forts to introduce wine-making at Tevay, in Indiana, by a colony of 

 Swiss, succeeded in making wine from the York Madeira, which he 

 called Cape grape as if from the Cape of Good Hope. He did not sue. 

 ceed in establishing it as a wine grape, but this was afterward done by 

 Mr. John E. Mottier, who made excellent wine from it resembling 

 Chambertin. To the late Mr. Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, Ohio, 

 the county is indebted for the long course of very expensive experi- 

 ments which demonstrated the practicability of making excellent wine 

 from Catawba grapes in the latitude of Cincinnati Farther north it 

 has scarcely, if at all, been successful. A number have gained dis- 

 tinction at Cincinnati, by the production of excellent still Catawba 

 wine, foremost of whom is J. E. Mottier. Messrs. Werk, Bogen and 

 others besides Mr. Longworth have also made excellent sparkling Ca- 

 tawba wine. 



To Mr. Schnicke belongs the high distinction of having been the 

 first to demonstrate the surpassing excellence of the Delaware grape 

 for wine. After he had|IUIly proved it to his own mind beyond a 

 doubt by tlie uniform recnlt of four years' trial, he rejoiced as only a 

 German could who had made this cnuntry his home, but had not dared 

 hope to find among its blessings so good a grape as the White Rle^sling. 

 He then expressed his full belief that the Delaware would prove to be 



