430 VARIOUS SPECIES PRELIMINARIES. 



I have never heard of any actual maker of such gene- 

 rous and inspiriting beverages, nor of any one who 

 has ever tasted them. And surely, such need have 

 no place in our catalogue, which is replete with so 

 ample a variety of superior materials. Our proper 

 native wine-fruits, those in most general use, I appre- 

 hend to be grapes, currants, gooseberries, elder-ber- 

 ries, and cowslips, (the latter hight in Essex, pagles). 

 Raisins and oranges, foreign fruits ; the former per- 

 haps are used to a greater extent than any other. 

 Raspberries, strawberries, and stone fruits, contri- 

 bute to furnish the wine cellar, in plentiful seasons ; of 

 those the apricot is said to make a generous and plea- 

 sant wine, of admirable bouquet. The above, noted 

 as the chief, together with raisins and orange, are 

 those producing the only wines, in the manufacture of 

 which I have taken any concern. Of those from 

 mixed fruits, which, to borrow an old stock-jobbing 

 phrase, may be denominated omnium gatherum wines, 

 so strenuously recommended formerly by Mr. Mat- 

 thews to the Bath society, I know nothing, but that, 

 on mentioning them to one of the most experienced 

 wine-brewers of the present day, it did not meet his 

 approbation. ^f 



Next come the preliminaries of manufacture, which 

 ought to be judiciously and soundly established and 

 arranged on the unerring principle, that, unless we 

 make a good beginning, we ought not to expect a 

 good and profitable conclusion. Towards this end, 

 the quality of the materials to be used, is of primary 

 consequence, not only of the fruits themselves, and 

 their condition, but of those indispensable adjuncts, 



