CHAPTER I. 



HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OF THE VINE. 



THE culture of the vine has always accompanied the progress of 

 civilization from the earliest ages up to the present time. Although 

 generally said to have been introduced into Europe from Asia Minor 

 modern research tends to prove that it was indigenous throughout 

 Southern Europe. Of late years many fossil vines have been dis- 

 covered, some of which so closely resemble the varieties of the present 

 day that it is most probable that the vine has existed in Europe since 

 the geological ages. 



Wine was made and drunk by the Hebrews, Egyptians, Greeks, 

 and Romans in the very earliest times. The first mention of it in the 

 Bible is in Genesis ix., 20, 21, 24, where we are told how Noah made 

 wine, and drinking some of it, without knowing its strength, was over- 

 powered by it. Even before this, however, it appears that wine was 

 made in Egypt. At the tomb of Apophis a bas-relief was found 

 representing a wine-press which dates from B.C. 3852, or 1,500 years 

 before Noah. 



The antiquity of viticulture, although interesting, is of no 

 practical importance to us, and it will suffice to say that as times 

 became more peaceable, the growth of the vine spread over the 

 greater part of the continent of Europe, even penetrating into the 

 south of England, where, however, it is no longer cultivated for wine- 

 making purposes, and at the present day this precious plant is 

 cultivated in every civilized country where climatic conditions render 

 it possible to do so with profit. 



The vine belongs to the family of the Ampelideae, genus Vitis, 

 All the vines of European origin belong to one species, i.e., Vinifera; 



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