18 THE EVOLUTION OF OUR NATIVE FRUITS 



an undertaking as autient at least as the days cf 

 Noah." There is other evidence that the undertaking 

 had received little close attention, for he knows very 

 few natural enemies of the crop, a condition of things 

 which could not have existed if the vine had been an 

 important .subject of cultivation. The first enemy to 

 the vineyard is "people of every age and sex," espe- 

 cially the "rude and unthinking sort," which "take all 

 advantages of your absence or neglect at the time of 

 the fruit's beginning to grow ripe, to rob and pilfer." 

 These persons "must be carefully guarded against, by 

 a good, close, high fence without, and a smart, watch- 

 ful dog within, and especially by the vigneron's ap- 

 pearing now and then with a gun in his hand, walk- 

 ing about his vineyard in an evening." He then men- 

 tions birds, some of which "give you a fine song for 

 your fruit;" wasps, which pierce the grapes "in sev- 

 eral places, witli their sharp- pointed bills;" "a short. 

 smooth earth worm," or grub, which "often cuts off 

 the choicest branches" of young vines near the sur- 

 face of the ground; and finally, there were "vine fret- 

 fcers," which are "very .small animaleulae, or insects." 

 which "appear in great numbers, in mere clusters, 

 upon the young, tender branches, upon the juice of 

 which they feed." Antill devotes much space to the 

 making of win.-, and the varieties which he recom- 

 mends were all of the European stock. Antill is 

 mentioned by S. W. Johnsoo as "a gentleman who 

 cultivated the grape with sedulous attention," and he 

 made wine mid shipped some of it to England. 



Johnson wrote the second popular treatise on the 

 vine which has come down to us. It is a "book 



or chapter, "On the Cultivation of the Vine," com 



