6 INTRODUCTION. 



used, those vile compounds called pure Port, 

 Malaga, Champagne, &c., and chiefly compounded 

 of whiskey, cider, sugar of lead, logwood, green 

 corm, etc., would take their final exit from our land, 

 and also would take away in their flight their usual 

 concomitants, impaired health, and vitiated appetite 

 for spiritiwus liquors* It is not supposed that the 

 great leading interest in this latitude in America, 

 will be the cultivation of vast vineyards for wine, yet 

 every person who owns a house and six feet in width 

 around it, can in a very few years with trifling 

 labor and expense, raise grapes sufficient to supply 

 abundantly an ordinary family with fruit, from 

 September until February, or March, besides wine 

 for medicinal uses. Those who prefer not to 

 extract the wine, can readily dispose of all their 

 surplus grapes, if of good variety, in our markets at 

 a fair profit. 



So little foreign wine is sold in our country in its 

 pure state, that a friend of the author, the late 

 Judge Woodruff, who visited the wine countries of 

 the east, remarked, that the only certain way to 

 obtain it unadulterated, was to press out the juice 

 and make the wine yourself, bung it tight, and then 

 get astride the cask and ride it all the way home. 

 It is stated that more wine is annually sold in New 

 York for the pure article, than passes through the 

 custom-house in ten years, although we import six 

 or seven million gallons yearly, and at a cost to the 

 consumer, probably of eight or ten million dollars. 



