25 



beiongs, and which is cultivated in the Departments of the Yonne, 

 Cote-d'Or, Saone and Loire ; or to that grape which yields the small 

 wines of Vosges and the flat wines of Haute-Vienne. 



Distinctions of the varieties of the Vine must be always obscure and 

 empirical, since there are as yet, no universal pohits of agreement on 

 the real value of the expressions and characters by which they are 

 designated. And nothing, not even a whole Ufe dedicated to it, would 

 be as powerful in extricating the history of the Vine from the laby- 

 rinth of confused names, as the corumunication of special committees 

 of every agricultural society, discussing individual researches, and 

 redncing them all under a uniform nomenclature. Columella, the 

 wisest and best of Latin natural pliilosophers, who signalized 58 va- 

 rieties of the vine*; Cresceszio, the restorer of Italian agriculture, 

 who tells of 40, pecuhar to the Peninsula, in the third centuryt ; 

 Alonzo de Hebrzra, who recognized 15 essential differences in the 

 Vines of Spain; ; Duhamel du Moxceau, who has given so exact a 

 description of 14 varieties deemed by him peculiar to France §, fur- 

 nish fine materials ;. their treatises form excelient starting points for 

 the undertaking just indicated. 



*De Re rustica, lib. IIL cap. 2. 

 t Opus rurahum commodorum, hb. IV. cap. 3 and 4 

 % Agricultura generalis, Hb. II. cap. 2. 

 k Traite des arbres fruitiers; Art. Vigne. 



4 



