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SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
Longfellow gives us the following spirited poem 
on a very inspiriting subject : 
CATAWBA WINE. 
BY HBNIty W. LONGFELLOW. 
This song of mine 
Is the Song of the Vine, 
To be sung by the glowing embers 
Of wayside inns, 
When the rain begins 
To darken the drear Novembers. 
It is not a song 
Of the Scuppernong, 
From warm Carolina’s valleys — 
Nor the Isabel 
And the Muscatel 
That bask in our garden alleys— 
Nor the red Mustang, 
Whose clusters hang 
O’er the waves of the Colorado, 
And the fiery flood 
Of whose purple blood 
Has a dash of Spanish bravado. 
For the richest gnd best 
Is the wine of ibe West, 
That grows by the Beautiful River ; 
Whose sweet perfume 
Fills all the room 
With a benison on the giver. 
And as hollow trees 
Are the haunts of bees 
Forever going and coming, 
So this crystal hive 
Is all alive 
With a swarming and buzzing and humming. 
Very good in their way 
Are the Verzenay, 
And the Sillery soft and creamy; 
But Catawba Wine 
Has a taste more divine, 
More dulcet, delicious, and dreamy. 
There grows no vine 
By the haunted Rhine, 
By Danube or Gaudalquiver, 
Nor on island or cape 
That bears such a grape 
As grows by the Beautiful River. 
Drugged in their juice 
For foreign use. 
When shipped o’er the reeling Atlantic, 
To rack our brains 
With the fever pains 
That have driven the Old World frantic. 
To the sewers and sinks 
With all such drinks. 
And after them tumble the mixer ! 
For a poison malign 
Is such Borgia wine. 
Or at best but a Devil’s Elixir. 
While pure as a spring 
Is the wine I sing. 
And to praise it one need but to name it ; 
For Catawba Wine 
Has need of no sign. 
No tavern bush to proclaim it. 
And this song of the Vine, . 
This greeting of mine, 
The winds and the birds shall deliver 
To the Queen of the West, 
In her garlands dressed. 
On the banks of the Beautiful River. 
ORCHARD RAMBEES. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — Thomas Rivers, the 
most delightful of English horticulturists, has written a 
very pleasant treatise on raising all manner of fruit under 
glass; or “Orchard-houses,” in short, or more properly, 
perhaps, “House-Orchards.” 
By grace of a little lumber and glass, he introduces the 
glow of Southern France into the heart of England, and 
therein employs himself so profitably in raising hiS 
Peaches, Plums and Nectarines, 
Pears, Apricots and ripe Strawberries, 
and so pleasantly in telling abc ut it afterwards, that one 
almost covets a climatic excuse to go and do likewise. 
But after following him through the busy processes of 
building and bordering; of potting, and pinching, and 
pruning, and warming, and cooling, and wetting and dry- 
ing ; noticing, with particular interest, his complicated 
cat and mouse performance, on the rooty I cannot go out 
into the open sunshine, and look up at the broad, pellucid 
arch of my House- Orchard, without thanking God, and 
taking courage. 
I hope I don’t do Mr. Rivers too little honor, nor my 
native State too much, when I say that I underwent his 
recital with much of the sentiments of a Fruit-Niagara 
which should be called upon to consider the manner, in 
which, 
“The water comes down at Lodore,” 
or something like the exaltation of Gulliver when he 
“extinguished” the Palace (good-will and fixtures) of the 
punctilious King of Lilliput. 
I wish I could reciprocate the pleasure which Mr. 
Rivers has given me, by sending him a small specimen of 
a two-year-old “Shanghae.” I could vouch for its filling 
all his borders with roots, all his room with foliage, and 
all his “pots” with peaches before he cculd fairly get out 
of the house. The difficulty is that being, like a certain 
hero of our history, a “hot natered critter,” it might, 
under the restraint of anything like a White-house, im- 
patiently “kick the kiver off,” 
And knock to shivers 
The House of Rivers ! 
And this leads me (Orchard Rambles being not only 
dicursive but excursive, with equal liberty to “arrive at 
results” and to “roll in the grass”) to remark on the 
glorious future which dawns, from the East, on Southern 
Pomology. So far, the Chinese fruits, in beauty, vigor 
and productiveness seem to be even more at home than 
our natives. There is certainly no Peach here which 
rivals the Shanghae in these qualities ; and the new Honey 
Peach takes to the soil like a Chickasaw Plum. 
The former lacks beauty of color and, to my taste, a 
little higher flavor. The latter begins to bear before it is 
weaned, and blossoms, unfortunately, about the 8th of 
January. 
Had we an air-line to China, through by daylight, great 
results might be expected. Here, for instance, I could 
drop this Late Crawford, with its magnificent coat of 
gold and crimson, into a hole (the Young American ter- 
minus) and in a short time receive it back, faithfully 
copied, but with the privilege of ripening the last of 
May ! 
As it isn’t likely, however, that Young America wiq 
be in a hurry to cut himself off from the West by any 
