NATIVE GRAPES. 107 



from the south-west, of the same color, aroma, and flavor, 

 but smaller, and the vine of slow growth, and a poor bearer ; 

 and one bearing much larger fruit, of precisely the same 

 character, but inferior. I discovered it in the center of my 

 vineyards, and know not how it came there. 



My oldest vine-dresser, Father AMMEN, has gone the way 

 of all flesh, and I regret his end. He was a worthy old man. 

 Some twelve years since, he lost his wife, and deeply regretted 

 her loss. He assured me, with tears in his eyes, " she was 

 just so good in the vineyard as one man, and he might just 

 so well have lost his horse." He got a second wife, but she 

 was of hasty temper, and gave the old man as good as he 

 sent. Finally, she told him, if he would give her five dollars, 

 she would leave him, and never see him more. " Give you 

 five dollars !" said the old man : " I will do no such thing ; 

 but if you go and never come back, I will give you ten dol- 

 lars." The money was paid, and the old man was relieved 

 of that trouble ; but one that he deemed greater came. I 

 have heretofore said, that after being my tenant ten years, 

 he was ruined by selling his share of the crop for eight hun- 

 dred dollars. He cleared out ; went to the north part of the 

 state; bought^ land, and planted a vineyard. The location 

 was too far north. His vines were killed, and he came back 

 a poor man, and began a new vineyard on a farm of mine, 

 adjoining his old one, on which his son-in-law has resided 

 since he left it. This year his vineyard came into bearing, 

 and the old man's heart rejoiced to think that he should again 

 be able to sit under the shade of his favorite tree, and enliven 

 his heart with wine of his own making. But, alas ! the rot 

 came, and blasted his prospects. He became dispirited ; 

 which, the cholera discovering, a few days since, seized his 

 victim. He was taken to the house of his son-in-law (for he 

 lived alone, and I could not prevail on him to take a Frau 

 for the third time), when they urged him to take medicine, 

 out he refused. He was told if he did not, in a few hours 



