No. 244. 1 391 



(he female bore the fruit, this sex alone had generally been trans- 

 planted: — hence the failure. 



Mr. Chandler asked the chairman, Dr. Underbill, if he had ever 

 known good wine made of the Scuppernong grape? 



Dr. Underbill replied that he had, ten or twelve years ago, tasted 

 some that was good. 



Mr. Chandler said that specimens of Scuppernong wine had been 

 sent to the fair for many years, but never but once has there been 

 anything that deserved even the name of wine, and in that one in- 

 stance, it could with difficulty pass for poor wine. 



Mr. Walden said we know little of wine in this country. It is a 

 purely manufactured article. As a merchant, he had imported a 

 great deal of it. He did, once, import some of the pure juice of 

 the Madeira, and it was a miserable article, — purple, pulpy, and in- 

 sipid. It is, as well as brandy, an entirely made-up article, in Spain 

 and France. They make brandy for the Russian market, entirely 

 •white; for us, it must be colored. He had, he said, received many 

 times, specimens of different colors and flavors, both of wine and 

 brandy, from the manufacturer, who wished to know what particular 

 variety best suited our market. Good champagne, he said, could 

 be made from cider. 



Dr. Underbill said, after twenty years' experience, he had not 

 known a single instance of success in foreign vines for vineyards 

 and gardens, without the protection of glass. He had never known 

 them to live over four or five years, in any part of the country. 

 In regard to native grapes, there were none like the Isabella, and 

 that owed its superiority to some fifteen years of cultivation. 



Judge Van Wyck. — What think you of the capacity of the native 

 grape of Connecticut valley, &c., to make wine? Will they do as 

 well as Isabella and Catawba? 



Dr. Underbill. — They will make wine now, — and after cultivation, 

 still better. 



Mr. Nash. — I am satisfied that Scuppernong grape will not thrive 

 away from its present peculiar situation, growing in the vent bed of 

 sand and shells hove up by the waves, — and free from frost and snow. 



