WHEN GRAPES ARE EIFE. 247 



so nicely adjusted under the most favorable 

 conditions, that when motion begins in one, it 

 is immediately communicated to all the rest: 

 all move, and each performs, its allotted task 

 in producing a perfect fruit. There are no 

 woody, fibrous barriers to impede or shut off 

 access to the interior, and which the ripening 

 process can not overcome, but it finds, as it 

 were, open doors and ready passages to lead it 

 to the remotest parts of the berry, and it thus 

 takes possession of the whole, converting it 

 into a uniform mass of goodness. 



It is these elements, under precisely the same 

 conditions and operating in the same manner, 

 that, have heretofore been wanting in the 

 native grape; and they had been so long and 

 so earnestly hoped for, that most people had 

 begun to think it impossible that they ever 

 would be found there; but the supposed im- 

 possibility having been proved possible, we 

 may confidently look forward to the time when 

 truly good grapes will be as common in our 

 markets as poor ones now are. The structure 

 of our native grape is radically faulty : woody, 

 fibrous walls meet the ripening process at 

 every step ; it finds no open doors or ready 

 passages, but must perforce knock a hole 



