clx INTRODUCTION. 



Dr. Daniel Drake, in an address on &quot; The Early Physicians, Scenery, and Society of Cincinnati,&quot; 

 states that &quot; Third street, running near the brow of the upper plain, was on as high a level as Fifth 

 street is now. The gravelly slope of that plain stretched almost to Pearl street. On this slope, be 

 tween Main and Walnut, a French Political exile, M. Mennesieur, planted, in the latter part of the last 

 century, a small vineyard. This was the beginning of that cultivation for which the environs of that 

 city have since become so distinguished. I suppose this was the first vineyard cultivation in the valley 

 of the Ohio.&quot; The well-known naturalist, F. A. Michaux, in his travels through the United States in 

 1802, &quot;visited the vineyard near Lexington and found but one variety of grape a native, doing well, 

 the foreign mildewed.&quot; The foregoing extracts afford a fair sample of the pioneer efforts in vineyard 

 culture in the west ; they were much like those in the east, and wherever foreign vines were planted 

 disappointment and loss resulted. In the south, owing to its genial climate, the experiments were more 

 successful, but most so with native vines. In 1812 I was first cheered by the sight of a vineyard. It 

 was on the south side of a hill at Rapp s German settlement of Harmony, in Butler county, Pennsyl 

 vania. The grapes planted were principally native varieties, the most of them &quot; Schuylkill.&quot; Five 

 years later I visited the vineyard of the Swiss colony, at Vevay, Indiana, where the same grape was 

 the favorite. At the former the vines were planted in 1808, at the latter in 1806. The product was 

 a red wine, resembling claret, but rather too harsh for the American palate. Still it was received with 

 favor as a home production, giving promise of great results in the future. 



I now come to a period when the second class of pioneers in this cultivation were more fortunate 

 than their predecessors, and, with other grapes, produced better wines. About the year 1820 Major 

 John Adlum, of Georgetown, D. C., first brought the Catawba into notice as a wine grape, and Thomas 

 McCall, of Georgia, Mr. Herbemont, and other gentlemen of the south, the Warren, Herbemont, Madeira j 

 and other varieties which have since proved so valuable. 



To Major Adlum belongs the honor of introducing the Catawba, and so high was his appreciation 

 of this grape that he wrote to Mr. Longworth, of Cincinnati, that he believed he had conferred a greater 

 favor on his country than if he had paid off the national debt ; in which, after a trial of the grape for 

 wine. Mr. Longworth agreed with him. 



The memory of the late Nicholas Longworth, of Cincinnati, will ever be held in the highest esteem 

 by the wine-growers of our country, as he was the father of successful vine culture in the west. By 

 a large expenditure in money in his various experiments with both foreign and native grapes, during a 

 period of forty-three years, he at last succeeded in producing sparkling and still wines highly creditable 

 to himself and the country, and the practical knowledge he acquired from year to year was liberally 

 made known through the public prints for the benefit of all. 



The late John J. Dufour, of Vevay, Indiana, is also entitled to the grateful remembrance of the 

 people of the United States for his early and persevering efforts in the cultivation of the vine in this 

 country of his adoption. For thirty years succeeding the introduction of the Catawba grape, the large emi 

 gration of Germans into the Ohio valley, many of them from the wine districts on the Rhine, furnished 

 practiced and willing vine-dressers, who were glad to have the opportunity of trying their skill in this 

 new country with a grape so promising. Numerous vineyards were planted in the western States, in 

 localities supposed^) be favorable, especially in the vicinity of Cincinnati, and in 1850 Catawba wine, 

 produced in^mTndreds of thousands of gallons, had acquired a high reputation as a rival of Rhenish wine, 

 and became an article of export to our eastern cities. The cultivation had spread over all the western 

 and southwestern States, and we thought then, as we do now, that wine-growing would eventually be 

 ranked amongst our most important agricultural interests. This the next generation may possibly realize. 



Vineyard culture in the United States may now be considered as fairly established. Wine is made 

 in thirty of the thirty-four States of the Union, of different qualities of course, and with varied success. 

 As to its future production in quantity, I should name, first, California ; second, the mountainous dis 

 tricts of the southern States, as most favorable on account of the climate ; third, the Ohio and Missis 

 sippi valleys ; fourth, the middle States ; and last, the eastern. As to quality, the best samples have 



