192 



not come into much repute until 600 years 

 after the foundation of Rome/' 



Julius Caesar found vines growing in Lan- 

 guedoc and Provence; but other parts of 

 Gaul were totally without vines at that time. 

 Strabo remarks, that Languedoc and Pro- 

 vence produced the same fruit as Italy ; but 

 it was not until about the year 270, that the 

 vine was planted in the northern parts of 

 Gaul, and about the rivers Rhine, Maine, and 

 Moselle ; and in Hungary. 



The varieties of the grape-vine are very 

 numerous : and we have accounts of some 

 of them growing to an extraordinary size, 

 and producing such fruit as appears almost 

 incredible to our northern conception of 

 grapes. 



Strabo, who lived in the reign of Au- 

 gustus, testifies that the vines of Margiana y 

 and in other places, were so big, that two 

 men could scarcely compass them with their 

 arms, and that they produced bunches of 

 grapes two cubits, or a yard, in length. Co- 

 lumella states, that Seneca had a vine which 

 produced him two thousand clusters of grapes 

 in a year. Theophrastus mentions a vine 

 that grew so large, that a statue of Jupiter, 

 and the columns in Juno's temple, were made 

 of it. At the present time, the great doors 



