314 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
AGBICULTUBAL FAIB8. 
This is the season of Agricultural Fairs, and we hope 
they will be sustained and kept up with proper spirit 
throughout the South. Attend all your State and County 
Shows, with samples of the products of your plantations, 
farms, gardens, orchards, nurseries, stables, flocks, herds, 
poultry yards, &c., &c. Make careful comparisons with 
your neighbors, and see if you are not in many things a 
“little behind the times ” If so, lose no time in catching up 
by procuring the best of everything pertaining to your 
favorite pursuit. Our Agricultural Societies are worthy of 
a generous support. They have conferred vast benefits on 
the country by the dissemination of improved farm stock, 
seeds, fruits, agricultural implements^ labor-saving ma- 
chinery, &c., and a taste for improvement and progress in 
rural life ; and we who are most interested in such im- 
provement and progress, must see that they do not languish 
for want of our assistance. 
ME. AXrS GKAPES— GEOEGIA VINEYAEDS—SOGTH- 
EEN WINE. 
In our September number of the year 1853, (page 280) 
we briefly adverted to the beginning of what we must 
consider the Grape Growing and Wine making era of 
Georgia ; and it now affords us peculiar pleasure to record 
tbe progress already made, and the future promise of the 
enterprise. 
As we then stated, Mr. Charles Axt, (a native of the 
Vine Growing District of the Rhine,) profoundly impress- 
ed with the peculiar fitness of our soils and climate for die 
growth of the Grape and Wine making, eagerly sought to 
enlist our people in the enterprise. At first he made very 
slow progress. It was almost a new business — it had never 
been well tested — our people did not understand it, and 
Mr. Axt’s then imperfect knowledge of our language, pre- 
cluded anything like a free communication of the infor- 
mation which he evideatly possessed. For two or three 
years, (from 1850 to 1853) he met with very little encour- 
agement, and a man less sanguine and persevering, would 
have given up in despair. Not so, Mr. Axt, however — 
he knew he was right— and he pressed steadily onward. 
The results of his efforts thus far, are most gratifying 
and encouraging. He has now quite a number of very 
promising young vineyards in Middle and Cherokee 
Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina; and it is only 
necessary that planters of taste and intelligence should be 
made aware of the main features of his system, and witness 
some of the results, to arouse among them a very general 
interest in the subject. With the view of imparting what 
we know of Mr. A.’s operations thus far, we will briefly 
state what we witnessed at the 
VINEYARD OF DR. W. Q. ANDERSON. 
feet apart in the rows. The cuttings of Mr. Axt are very 
long (18 to 24 inches) and the ground must be thoroughly 
broken and pulverized in order that they can be easily 
pushed down so deep that only o«e eye is left above the 
surface. Of the 500 cuttiugs first planted for Dr. Ander- 
son, only about 140 survived the late frosts and drouth, 
and these 140 vines now constitute the Doctor’s ex- 
perimental vineyard. 
We visited thisvineyard on the 23d of August,in com- 
pany with Mr. Axt, Hon. M. A. Cooper, of Cass, Mr. 
Bacon, of Troup, and M. P. Calloway, Esq., of Wilkes; 
and we are confident that the general feeling of the party was 
that of most agreeable surprise. The vines, which were 
trained to plain wooden horizontal supports, were literally 
laden with heavy, blushing clusters of the most beautiful 
and poetical of all fruits— the bloom-covered Grape— and the 
fine, strong, bearing-canes, huge, healthy leaves, and large, 
sound bunches, with no sign of rot or mildew, all proved 
conclusively the benefits of deep culture and proper train- 
ing. We counted the number of clusters on several vines, 
and found an average of over 40 on each. According to 
the estimate of Mr. Axt, forty such clusters will produce 
at least a gallon of wine— so that the quarter acre of Dr. 
A., with scarce one-third of a fair stand of vines, will pro- 
duce 140 gallons of wine the present season. The proper 
number of vines for an acre, on Mr. Axt’s plan, is sixteen 
hundred ; and that number of gallons (1600) of wine, may 
we think, be safely counted on from an acre of properly 
managed vines, the third year. With good care, the yield 
will increase thereafter, from year to year; and Mr. Axt 
has no hesitation in pledging himself to produce twenty- 
five hundred (2500) gallons of good wine from an acre of 
vines, the fifth year after planting. Estimating this wine 
at the lowest possible figure (SI per gallon) and allowing 
only one-half of Mr. Axt’s estimate (1250 gallons) we 
have S1250 for the production of one acre of ground, in one 
season— a result not often attained in tire regular routine 
of Cotton and Corn planting ! 
We have no desire to put “too fine a point” upon this 
matter, or in ‘the least degree to mislead our readers. 
Neither do we believe in any “royal roads” to fortune. VV e 
merely tell what we saw, and give our own impressions of 
the matter. We desire to see some portion of the capital, 
and much of the taste and skill of our country diverted 
from the old time-worn track that leads to the everlasting 
and omnipotent cotton-bag; and, to that end, stand ready 
to encourage any enterprise which will give our planters 
and their poor, worn lands more time for rest and improve- 
ment. The culture of the Grape and the making of W ine 
promises to do this; and also to prove a most efficient aux- 
iliary to the cause of temperance, sobriety and good mor- 
als,* and it, therefore, has our heartiest good wishes and 
This experimental vineyard of Dr. A., is located at 
his dwelling, 7 miles from Washington, Wilkes Co., Ga. 
It is on the summit of a slight elevation — the surface soil 
of a dry, gravelly nature, and the subsoil a red clay. In 
the winter of 1853, one-quarter of an acre was thorough- 
ly trenched, two spades deep, and 500 cuttings of the 
Catawba Grape were planted in 7 foot rows, cuttings 
*It is universally co»ceded that the inhabitants of wi^e 
making districts are remarkably free from the drunkenness 
so prevalent in countries where distilled alcoholic liquors 
are in common use ; and the united testimony of physicians 
and physiologists goes to prove that pure u'ine, in moder- 
ate quantities, may in most cases, be drank with positive 
benefit. 
