1861. 



THE ILLmOIS FAEMEK. 



131 



so pleasing to the eye at all time-^, and especially 

 at tliat season wli 'd other trees and shrubs stand 

 leafless in the chilly air. 



Egypt. 



Cohden, lli'.rch 13, 1861. 



— " Egypt " knows what he is driving at when 

 he speaks of evergreens, and our readers will do 

 wel'; TO tiike hee'', to his advice. He has sent us 

 five ;iiousand young Red Cedars, which grew as 

 lie ilcscribes. at the base of the hills, where the 

 sand t-toue crops out, or rather where it has not 

 Tea hered down to soil. These were puddled as 

 we h.ive directed for the shipping of strawberry 

 platit-, in a previous number. 



TJie-^e yoang evirgreens we put out uoder the 

 sliade of a row of ptach trees, and protected 

 from the north and west wind, where they are to 

 reuain two years, whea they will go info nurse- 

 ry !()v. s in the open ground, thus pieparing them 

 to stand our sharp and changing winters. No- 

 thin:^ gives a more cheerful aspect to the exterior 

 of a farm home than a few well grown and thrifty 

 evergreens, at all times of the j'ear, while iu 

 winter they are almost iiidisptnsille. Ed. 



Something About Wines. 



With all our talk about the growing of the 

 grape 'or mannficture of wine, aud from all the 

 grai'i' juice expres:~ed, how little of it can truly 

 be (iesignatr-d as wine. It may be so c-iUed, but 

 the true wiue taste wotild as sooa decide the log- 

 wood, sugar, aud ne-urjil spirits, S'dd as P> rt 

 wine, to t.e the real productioa of the grape, as 

 call much of the preparation of grape .,uice, 

 cur a;jt juice, and their bug*r mixtures by the 

 nai.'.i.' of wine-. 



In my early ypa-s it was my lot to be diilj' 

 associa'ed with iho^e who made wines more or 

 les .'i stutly, and who from expeiience coui) de- 

 tect blii dfulded, by taste alon;-, every particular 

 shiidr^ of wine, its age, e;c., etc. Duricg the 

 past few years, I have been of'On placed aniorg 

 wine tasters, and have occasional'}' had s.imples 

 of wine s 11 lae for C(jmparison, etc But l>oin 

 obsoiv . t;. II and iissociaiion, I have learned to 

 ki.ow that ill wiiJt'S I ki'OW nothing, and j«st 

 (nouj;!i to regard most of the so-c=il!ed wine as 

 utteily umleserviiig the name. Much of it is 

 made irom unripene I fruit, or in process of fer- 

 me^uit'oii, is so managed that without addiiion 

 of Migar, it would {ass, as 1 ot.ce heaid a mtm , 

 ber of a wine comm.tte decide, for pretty fair 

 vinegar. 



A ;ain, there is much, and in fact the larger 

 quiniiij', among those who make for their own 

 us • otdy, to which so much sugar is ;idded that 

 the iiiisiure becomes rather a coidial thau a 

 wine. We will not talk of the boquet an all that, 

 but .'imply say that iu wi;.e, there must always 

 remain that fruity taste, which, afti^r drinking a 

 glass, Will leave on the palate a taste similar to 



what would be had if we had ju?t eaten of the 

 fruit from wiiich such w^ne was made. Uitliout 

 this, our giocers who sell all sort- of mixtures 

 for wines, have as much right to the na-iie fur 

 their prepirations as the manufacturers of a 

 leasant drink from grape or cane juice nnd ^- 

 gar. At least, such is the.writer's opinioo, rind 

 he makes thes^ criticisms, not to reflect on the 

 inexpevience of any one, but with a v ew to have 

 those who are growing fruit, and about lo make 

 it into wine, give the matter their careful study, 

 so thit we may hereafter have mort of true v.ine 

 nnd I'^ss of C( rdial ; th-it, af'tr urihking a £ ass 

 or two, will leave on the pa'ate a taste of the 

 sugar cane rather than the grave. 



THE LOGAN GRATE FOR WiNE. 



Last fall, or rather last summer, when eating 

 of the Lcgan grape, I counted it as promising 

 to become more valusble as a wine graj t than 

 for the purposes cf the tab'e Afterward I siw 

 the must when preparing fvT wine, and it vvas so 

 light by the siccbarometer that the pro-- isc, .-.h 

 counted by mc, was very hiuch resirictcd. A 

 few days since, however, I call d on Mr. lioyt, 

 the owner of the fruiting vine here, in whose 

 po=ses ion was the must above named, ai d a ter 

 comparing the wine from the Log m, witli s milar 

 expte-sions from tne Delaware, Catawba, aud 

 Isal/elia. I find my origiral imprissions iro-ti the 

 Logan for wine purposes more than sustained. 

 The wine is dark ia coljr. but as made by Mr. 

 Hoyt, retains its fruity ta^te, with a little of the 

 asiringency natural to a pure Port. 1 1 ke it 

 b tter than the w.ne from Norton's Virginia, 

 which our Ileimann frieuda consider the bett 

 grape ^et tested for wine making. Of cur a-Rt 

 wine, I drank a few I'ays since, some made by a 

 gentleman here at Cleveland, that left ttiC taste 

 in the mouth as of having just eaten ( f the fresh 

 ripe fruit. How he maue it, I dou't know, hut 

 the fruity tnste was there, and the liquor as clrar 

 as crysral — Fifld Notes. F. E. £Li.ioTT. 



Cleveland March, 1861. 



[From Field Notes.] 



Planting and Training Grape Vines 



[Mmy persons who have planted young De'a- 

 wares, ReOeccns and other choice grapfs, iiave 

 had their patience sorely tried by fiudiig the 

 npward proirrnss of the vines mucu slower than 

 ilieir exp'O-Uations ; and mucii blame has been 

 ca-t upon the nursery men for siliing, as is al- 

 leged, feeb'e pLsnts, when in reality the fau't is 

 mainly attiihM-ah:e to the want of skill and care 

 on the part ot the p'anter. 



The lo'lo'-v;:ig article ab'-idge I from the Valley 

 Farmer, is the mo-^t sensible that we have s^ea 

 on this point. — £d ] 



We are induced to t^ke up this subject from 

 some facts that have been forced upon our ob~ 

 servation within a year or two— facts which il' 

 lustra'e the general want of knowledge on this 

 subject throughout the country. Ia the f:;ll of 

 1859, we T.a.de up quite an rder for various kinds 

 of grapes for a number of our friends, including 

 some for our own planting. Each ind vidaal 



