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OUR  NATIVE  WINES. 
OUR  NATIVE  WINES. 
Br  Frederick  Stearns. 
Our  native  wine  product  is  assuming  an  importance  which 
renders  facts  relating  to  the  manufacture,  or  its  statistics,  in- 
teresting to  all.  In  view  of  this,  the  writer  is  induced  to  lay 
before  the  readers  of  the  Peninsular  and  Independent  the 
following  remarks,  being  notes  of  facts  elicited  from  various 
sources,  and  having  a  bearing  upon  the  subject. 
In  considering  the  subject  of  the  annually  increasing- product 
of  wine  in  this  country,  one  naturally  inquires, — do  these  wines 
possess  the  qualifications  necessary  to  enable  them  to  properly 
substitute  those  of  Europe  as  dietetical  and  medicinal  agents  ? 
The  reader  may,  perhaps,  draw  some  inferences  in  answer  to 
this  inquiry  from  the  following  : 
As  far  back  in  our  history  as  1620,  vine  culture  for  the  manu- 
facture of  wine  was  undertaken  by  the  English  Colonists  of 
Virginia  ;  and,  from  that  early  period  to  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century,  many  attempts  were  made,  in  various  parts  of 
our  country,  to  supply  the  home  demand  for  wine  with  a  home 
product,  and  with  but  indifferent  success.  Those  attempts 
proved  abortive  through  the  want  of  experience  among  the 
growers,  and  of  suitable  varieties  of  vines  adapted  to  our  soil 
and  climate— all  growers  importing  at  that  time  the  vines  which 
were  cultivated  with  the  most  success  in  Europe.  Not  until 
experiments  were  made  in  cultivating  the  different  native  vari- 
eties was  there  much  promise  of  success.  When  this  was  under- 
taken by  the  French  and  Swiss  settlers,  in  the  first  years  of  the 
present  century,  along  the  valley  of  the  Ohio,  the  beginning 
was  made  of  that  culture  for  which,  even  now,  our  country  may 
be  proud. 
The  native  varieties  of  vine  now  cultivated  consist,  chiefly,  of 
the  Catawba,  Isabella,  the  Schuylkill  or  Vevay,  the  Scupper- 
nong,  and  Missouri ;  and  of  these  the  Catawba  constitutes  the 
largest  proportion,  its  cultivation  fast  superseding  that  of 
the  others.  This  being  the  principal  grape  now  grown,  to 
it  must  we  therefore  look  for  the  best  wines  of  native  produc- 
tion. 
We  find  that  there  are  three  varieties  of  wine  made  from  this 
