No. 151.] 263 



Mr. Hall agreed as respects large vineyards. But we have a wide 

 country, many parts of which have not yet been tried. There is at 

 least room for further experiment. 



Dr. Underhill said the foreign vines had been taken up at George- 

 town College, and the Isabella and Catawba are to take their place. 

 He related the failure of foreign grapes in Ohio, Indiana and many 

 other States. Still he would be glad to see foreign varieties culti- 

 vated under glass for early table fruit. But our native grapes may 

 easily be made to produce so abundant as to supply our tables for 

 eight months in the year, and make a sufficiency of wine besides. 

 Moreover, they may be so improved, and in some instances heme 

 been, as to be almost, I may say quite as good as the best foreign 

 varieties. As an article of food, they are valuable at all seasons, 

 more especially in autumn, when their antiseptic properties dilute 

 the blood, carry off the bile, and reduce the tendency to bilious fe- 

 ver and kindred complaints. 



Gen. Dearborn said, I bestowed, during eight or ten years, great 

 care and labor on foreign grape vines j after patiently trying every 

 -art and science to produce a favorable result, I succeeded in raising 

 just no grapes at all, and all my exertions ended in smoke; for I 

 pulled up the vines and burnt them. My father was government mi- 

 nister at Lisbon, and while there, took great pains to get choice 

 vines, which he forwarded with ample directions, to me. I cultiva- 

 ted them seven years with no success, and then dug them up. I now 

 have the Isabellas and Catawbas. There is scarcely a man near Bos- 

 ton but has made like experiments. Sometimes they got a bunch of 

 •grapes, generally not; unless indeed, they kept their vines under 

 glass; in which case the fruit was abundant and fine, as the exhi- 

 bitions of the Horticultural Society, over which I have the honor to 

 preside, have shown. We have had these grapes highly praised by 

 men who have travelled along the shores of the Mediterranean — -the 

 very region of good grapes. When I was in Congress, I visited 

 Col. Adams', President Madison's and Governor Barbour's vineyards, 

 in all which, the foreign vine had failed. On the plantation once 

 the seat of Joel Barlow, a man of considerable reputation as a hor- 

 ticulturist, the foreign vines had been dug up, and natives substitu- 

 ted. When the refugees from France came to this country. Congress 

 gave them a tract of land on the Black Warrior. There they planted 

 a noble vineyard of foreign vines; but it was very soon abandoned. 

 Many other instances of the disastrous result of cultivating foreign 

 vines I could mention, but these will suffice. Concerning the health- 



