FLOWERING SHRUBS 
done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring 
forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?” 
Beautiful are the allusions made in the Song of Solomon 
in his invitation to the beloved to go forth to the garden he 
had planted. “The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and 
the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, 
my love, my fair one, and come away.” 
“Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the 
vines fiourish, whether the tender grapes appear.” 
Probably the culture of the vine was among the earliest 
labors of the husbandman, and must have been of most 
ancient usage, the first work enjoined by the Almighty 
Creator when he placed man in the Garden of Eden—which 
was most likely a large and fertile tract of country already 
enriched with every tree and herb and flower that would 
prove useful for the support of life and contribute to man’s 
enjoyment. Adam was instructed by his Maker to till the 
ground and dress it and keep it. 
This employment was ordained for health and pleasure, 
not for toil or weariness. This last condition arose when 
sin had marred the fair beauty of God’s world and the sin- 
smitten earth no longer yielded its spontaneous fertility as 
in the day when sinless man first stood in his innocence on 
the then unpolluted earth, a fearless being in the presence 
of a holy God. 
The vine, which might have formed a delightful portion 
of man’s food in the Edenic garden, must from henceforth 
yield its luscious grapes only by care and labor. The wild 
vines must be pruned and trained and kept free from noxious 
weeds and hurtful insects; they were no longer the fruit 
of the Lord’s vineyard. Who can tell but that our wild 
Canadian Frost and Fox Grapes may not be the degenerated 
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