NATIVE GRAPES. 106 



the most delicious of all fruits, and found some that bore a 

 fair crop. This vine is easily distinguished from all others. 

 The leaf is like leather — thick, and of a white color on the 

 under side, and downy, and the new wood covered with a 

 hairy down, generally of a reddish cast. It is a great objec- 

 tion to it, that the fruit drops on the ground as soon as it is 

 ripe. I rank the common class as about equal to the Black 

 Scuppernong of North Carolina (the Muscadine of the Missis- 

 sippi), from which, it appears, a superior wine is made in 

 North Carolina, by putting three pounds of sugar to the gallon, 

 and sold for 84 per gallon, and from two thousand to three 

 thousand gallons are raised on an acre. Further, a Horticul- 

 turist there, tells us, he also makes wine from the green grape ; 

 the same person who raises so large a quantity, Mr. Alves, 

 of Kentucky (formerly of North Carolina), tells me they put 

 from one-fourth to one-third of spirits to the gallon, and sell 

 the Avine from seventy-five cents to one dollar per gallon ; a 

 wide difference in price this. The North Carolina Horticul- 

 turist seems learned in the manufacture of foreign wines, as 

 he tells us that one-third of Brandy is added to Port, Malm- 

 sey, and Madeira wines. This will be news indeed, to the 

 European wine merchants. 



The black Scuppernong bears from one to four berries on a 

 bunch, and would, in times of war, if lead be scarce, be as 

 valuable, even when fully ripe, as the Fox grape, for bullets. 

 The white Scuppernong, also, has a very small bunch, and is 

 a better grape than the black. But the skin is thick, and the 

 pulp hard ; it will never be valuable as a wine grape, unless 

 to give to other must, aroma and flavor. 



Our vineyards may have produced 800 and possibly 1000 

 gallons on an acre, but no vineyard has averaged 300 gallons 

 for ten years. I believe ground, with a mixture of sand, or 

 such as will freely let the rains sink, will be less subject to 

 rot, and average double the crop produced, where the sub- 

 soil is a stiflf clay. 



