372 Wisconsin State agricultural society. 
GRAPE GROWING. 
BY GEN. N. F. LUND, MADISON. 
Before the Northern Wisconsin Agricultural and Mechanical Convention, at Appletoo, March 
5 , 1874 . 
EARLY HISTORY. 
History goes not back to the time when man first planted the 
vine; and beyond the Sacred Records its first culture is shrouded 
in allegories, myths and fables; the only records that have come 
down to us being found in the poems and sculptures af antiquity. 
In the mythology of the ancients it had its special protecting 
deity, and Bacchus, the god of wine, was crowned with ivy and 
vine leaves. The shield of Achilles represented a vinegathering ; 
and on the oldest Greek tombs are found pictures representing the 
vine-harvest. 
It is first introduced to our notice when Noah planted a vin- 
yard and drank of the wine; and as one of the articles of provision 
hospitably offered by Melchizedek to Abraham, and the Sacred 
Writings abound in allusions to the vine and its fruit. Herodotus 
speaks of its culture in Egypt, and Pliny writes of the natural 
history of the vine. It is doubtless as old as the human race, 
and its cultivation was probably amongst the earliest efforts of 
human industry; while from the remotest records of antiquity 
we learn that the vine has been celebrated as the type of plenty 
and the symbol of happiness. 
The country where the vine was first cultivated cannot be 
positively known, but is believed to have been the hilly region on 
the southern shores of the Caspian sea, in the Persian province of 
Ghilan; from which country it probably spread across the conti¬ 
nent, to its eastern limit by the sea. The record tells us that 
the Phoenicians carried it to the island of the Mediterranean, 
whence it spread to Italy, Spains and France and thence over 
Europe. It was early brought to the colonies, having been planted 
in Yirginia before 1620. The Spaniards carried it to Mexico, and 
