276 
Sept. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
ed to continue without change for about a twelvemonth, | 
by which time the liquid is clear and a sediment is dis¬ 
covered at the bottom ; the bottles are then placed with 
their necks downwards, at an inclination of perhaps 
45 degrees, upon a rack fitted for the purpose : each 
bottle must be smartly shaken daily for several weeks, 
at the end of which period the sediment will have 
been ail deposited upon the cork; wires and twine be¬ 
ing now cut, the impurities are blown off with the cork, 
a little more sugar with a new cork are added, and 
after a secure fastening and a few weeks rest, the 
Sparkling Catawba is ready for sale. 
The cost of its manufacture is of coarse much in¬ 
creased by the waste during the bursting of the bot¬ 
tles. This is expected to an extent of five or ten per 
cent., and if it should not occur there would be a sus¬ 
picion that the wine had not life enough to be good. 
Mr. Longworth told me that a man who had charge of 
the establishment before Mr. Fournier, manufactured 
one lot of wine so that there was scarcely any burst¬ 
ing at all; and on complaint being made from this 
cause, he was determined to improve in the second ex¬ 
periment This consisted of 50,000 bottles; out of the 
number 42,000 burst! an explosive power quite satis¬ 
factory as showing what could be done by a little well 
directed effort, but scarcely as profitable in a pecuniary 
point of view. Mr. L. parted with the services of this 
effervescent manager, and since his engagement of Mr 
F. has had no cause of complaint from lack of skill in 
these respects. 
Most wine-drinkers in this country have become 
habituated to the sweetened and brandied wines im¬ 
ported, or their imitations, and have little fondness for 
the sour wines which form the common drink in all 
classes of European society—varying of course in 
cheapness from that which appears at every meal on 
the table of the peasant, to the comparatively expen¬ 
sive brands which the Parisian coDnoiseur selects for 
his more delicate palate. The still Catawba is there¬ 
fore mostly consumed at home, where custom has ren¬ 
dered it a favorite beverage, but the taste for it away 
from Cincinnati is continually upon the increase. The 
annual production is now estimated at over half a mil¬ 
lion of gallons, of which the Catawba furnishes the 
great part, some being made from the Isabella, and a 
little from the Herbemont. Mr. Longworth expressed 
the opinion that the Union Village or Shaker grape, 
which originated with the Union Village Society in Ohio, 
would prove a very valuable acquisition—its clusters 
and berries are both large, and some samples laid by 
him before the Cincinnati Horticultural Society with 
the inquiry whether they had ever seen so Jine Black 
Hamburghs raised without shelter , were examined, I 
was told, by a committee without the discovery being 
made that the grapes submitted were not actually the 
variety mentioned in Mr. Longworth’s question. 
Over thirty-five years ago Mr. Longworth began his 
experiments with the grape, and although the busi¬ 
ness now doubtless proves largely profitable, he has 
expended so largely in bringing it to perfection and in 
attracting public attention to the subject, that he may 
have no more than received a moderate interest upon 
his investments. His tenants mostly produce the 
grape juice which he manufactures upon shares, al¬ 
though he purchases large quantities from other sour¬ 
ces, some even from St. Louis, and all along the Ohio 
river, where vineyards have been started. The new 
wine commands in the neighborhood of 90 cents per 
gallon, and as some hundreds of gallons can be pro¬ 
duced upon an acre when in full bearing and well cared 
for, the culture of it is very remunerating. It is cer¬ 
tainly to be hoped, at least by those outsiders who 
would care to see the wines more widely consumed, 
that there will eventually be competition enough to 
render them cheaper, and consequently more general¬ 
ly accessible. 
I did not wish to leave without seeing a success¬ 
ful vineyard in actual growth, and consequently 
took the opportunity to go with Mr. C. F. GSchnicke, 
one of Mr. Longworth’s best tenants, to whom I 
have already referred, and who manifested great wil¬ 
lingness to impart to me all he could of the manage¬ 
ment and culture of the vine,—to the grounds of which 
he has now had charge for 13 years. Mr. S. is a German 
and an old soldier of the last Napoleonic campaigns ; 
and, neither of us being very perfect in the language 
of the other, it was a little difficult to understand 
all the questions and answers that passed. I under¬ 
stood from him that he had had no experience as a 
wine grower at home, but made his first trial here in 
1845, when he took his present place, obtaining the 
first grapes from it in 1847. Mr. Longworth, his land¬ 
lord, not having furnished him then a press, he ex¬ 
pressed the juice with a contrivance of his own mak¬ 
ing, and was not a little proud that this, his first 
attempt at wine making, carried out under disadvan¬ 
tages, should have been successful in obtaining the 
Cincinnati Hort. Society’s first prize—a silver goblet, 
which he showed me with evident satisfaction. He 
said that wine-making, like butter-making or any simi¬ 
lar process, was very simple and easy, and still there 
is a very wide difference in the quality of the result, 
varying mainly with the care, the neatness and the 
degree of judgment manifested in reaching it, 
Mr. S. now occupies 18 acres something over a mile 
from Mr. Longworth’s residence, in the region called 
the “ Garden of Eden,” and reached by a walk across 
the valley of “Deer Creek,” and along the side of 
“ Mt. Adams,” as the eminence is called, which is sur¬ 
mounted by the famous Cincinnati Observatory. The 
hills which run back from this are owned and occupied 
mostly for vine growing by Mr. Longworth—the second 
of them, I think, being the one which we were seek¬ 
ing. It was here that Dr. Charles Mackay came dur¬ 
ing his late American tour, to see American wine 
growing, and Mr. S. produced for me the letter written 
for the Illustrated London News by Dr. M., containing 
his widely copied poem in praise of the Catawba, and 
expressing likewise the opinion, which readers may re¬ 
ceive at what it is worth, though certainly compli¬ 
mentary enough,—that the 
“ Dry Catawba is a finer wine of the hock species and fla¬ 
vor, than any hoek that comes from the Rhine,” &e. 
And while speaking of Dr. M.’s views, I will mention 
a sample of wine which he pronounced in the same let¬ 
ter, 
“a dry wine of a pale, amber color, clear, odoriferous, 
and of most delicate flavor, and quite equal to “ Johan- 
nisberger,” 
and which was made by Mr. Schnicke for the purpose 
of trying the merits of a new grape that would I fear 
be pomologically pronounced rather “ foxy” in flavor, 
but which he thinks very well of when turned into 
