No. 150.] 327 



ject to the rot. The Missouri bids fair to be valuable as a wine 

 grape; and the Herbemont would be very valuable both for the table 

 and wine if it were less subject to rot. I have tried the foreign 

 grapes extensively for wine at great expense for many years, and 

 have abandoned them as unfit for our climate. In the acclimation of 

 plants I do not believe. The white, sweet water grape is not more 

 hardy with me than it was 30 years since, and does not bear as well. 

 I have tried them in all soils, and with all exposures. 



I obtained 5,000 plants from Madeira, 10,000 from France; and one- 

 half of them, consisting of twenty varieties of the most celebrated wine 

 grapes from the mountains of Jura, in the extreme northern part of 

 France, where the vine region ends; I also obtained them from the 

 vicinity of Paris, Bordeaux, and from Germany. I went to the ex- 

 pense of trenching one hundred feet square on a side hill, placing a 

 layer of stone and gravel at the bottom, with a drain to carry off the 

 water, and put in a compost of rich soil and sand three feet deep, and 

 planted on it a great variety of foreign wine grapes. All failed; and 

 not a single plant is left in my vineyards. I would advise the culti- 

 vation of native grapes alone, and the raising of new varieties from 

 their seed. It may be advisable to cross the Catawba with some of 

 the best foreign wine grapes, and raise from the seed. 



I have 24 vineyards, and about 67 acres of vineyard in bearing, 

 and about 32 acres recently planted, or ready for planting in the 

 spring. Last year there was a partial failure of the crop, but we 

 made 300 barrels of wine, being 200 barrels less than we calculated 

 on making before the rot commenced in the grapes. Of the cost and 

 profit of cultivation, I am not fully competent to speak; for profit 

 has not been my object, nor have I devoted that attention to my 

 tenants, that a regard for profit would require. I commenced with 

 the firm belief that the climate and soil in this region was admira- 

 bly calculated for the cultivation of the grape, and manufacture of 

 wine, and though I had little hope of succeeding in the cultivation 

 of the foreign wine grapes, I determined to give them a fair trial, 

 and resolved to collect native grapes from different parts of Ameri- 

 ca, believing as the Hughes crab apple of Virginia, gave us better 

 cider than any foreign apple, I might find a native grape capable of 

 making a superior wine. 



About 25 years since, I commenced settling Germans on my hilly 

 ground, and setting off to each from 12 to 25 acres. They were 

 generally very poor. There were no written contracts, but the under- 



