11 
REVIEW OF BOOKS. 
REVIEW OF BOOKS. 
A Practical Treatise on the Cultivation of the Grape Vine on open 
Walls. By Clement Hoare. 
Having been particularly called on to give our opinion of this work 
(page 4J1? Vol. IV.), we procured a copy, and have perused it with 
attention. We had conceived a high opinion of the work from the 
commendatory terms in which we had heard it spoken of by competent 
judges; and we are happy to avow that, on turning it over, we have 
felt no cause to alter our previously formed opinion. 
The book opens with a brief history of the vine, and of its intro¬ 
duction into Britain, and shows how extensively it was cultivated 
in early times, compared with what it is now. This neglect of 
the vine the author seems to consider as a national misfortune; but the 
very circumstance is presumptive proof that, as a national or com¬ 
mercial concern, vine-growing and wine-making never were profitable 
concerns in this country. Wine was never considered a necessary of 
life for the labouring classes ; they required copious draughts of liquor 
of a more invigorating and substantial character than even the best 
wine, doled out in tiny modicums by the hand of prudence, or that a 
regard for sobriety could allow to be partaken of by the thirsty and 
fatigued labourer; besides, a few fleeces of British wool would com¬ 
mand as much of the richest continental wine as ever was required for 
medicinal or festive purposes, without either the labour of growing the 
fruit, or the expense of manufacturing the wine at home. Add to this 
the fact that the finest fruit is never used as an article of diet in this 
country, as it is in warmer latitudes; and therefore grapes were never 
valued but as a luxury in England: and hence the neglect of the vine 
as a profitable plant. There is yet another circumstance which may 
have operated to discourage the cultivation of the tree, namely, the 
rule of political economy which enjoins to “grow necessaries and 
import luxuries ; ” a rule which has been observed by our legislative 
government respecting several other articles besides that of wine— 
tobacco, for instance. 
Mr. Hoare, it seems, is not a professional gardener; but, neverthe¬ 
less, he has, by much well - directed observation, acquired a most 
respectable stock of the best ideas of practical gardening respecting the 
culture of the vine. He appears to have read much, though not every¬ 
thing, that has been written on the subject, otherwise he would have 
known that his principles have been long and steadily acted on by all 
the first-rate professors of the art. Notwithstanding this, in strict 
