234 AMERICAN GRAPE CULTURE. 



in what the difference consists. We must be 

 able not only to recognize the excellence of 

 both, but to know wherein one is better than 

 the other, and why it is better. We must be 

 able not only to appreciate all the goodness of 

 the Delaware and the lona, but also to know 

 wherein and why the lona excels the Delaware ; 

 what, in fact, are the real excellences which 

 place the lona above all other American grapes. 

 When we can do this, we shall be the posses- 

 sors of real knowledge, and know what its 

 pleasures are. All may not attain to this im- 

 mediately, or by intuition, but all may and 

 should strive to reach it quickly by prompt and 

 thorough training of the taste. In all that 

 pertains to taste, no less than to knowledge, we 

 should seek for the substance, and not the 

 shadow: we should do our own tasting as well 

 as our own thinking, always happy in having 

 the intelligent in sympathy with us. 



Our taste, at present, is at a very low stand- 

 ard ; too many of us are content with the posi- 

 tively coarse and bad, to the neglect of the 

 delicate and good. Forced by circumstances to 

 begin low, we are too easily beguiled into re- 

 maining so. There is no longer any excuse for 

 this ; for we have now within our reach the 



