d prepare
the soil, at a cost of about $300 per acre, and then pay $200 more for
trellis, labor, etc., the poor man, he who must work for a living, can
not afford to raise grapes. And yet it is from the ranks of these
sturdy sons of toil that I would gain my recruits for that peaceful
army whose sword is the pruning-hook; it is from their honest,
hard-working hands I expect the grandest results. He who has already
wealth enough at command can of course afford to raise grapes with
bone-dust, ashes, and all the fertilizers. He can walk around and give
his orders, making grape culture an elegant pastime for his leisure
hours, as well as a source of profit. But, being one of the first class
myself, I had to fight my way up through untold difficulties from the
lowest round of the ladder; had to gain what knowledge I possess from
dear experience, and can therefore sympathize with those who must
commence without means. It is my earnest desire to save _them_ some of
the losses which _I_ had to suffer, to lighten their toil by a little
plain advice. If I can succeed in this, my object is accomplished.
In nearly all our books on grape culture I notice another defect,
especially in those published in the East; it is, that they contain a
great deal of good advice about grape culture, but very little about
wine-making, and the treatment of wine in the cellar. For us here at
the West this is an all-important point, and even our Eastern friends,
if they continue to plant grapes at the rate they have done for the
last few years, will soon glut the market, and will be forced to make
them into wine. I shall therefore try to give such simple instructions
about wine-making and its management as will enable every one to make a
good saleable and drinkable wine, better than nine-tenths of the
foreign wines, which are now sold at two to three dollars per bottle. I
firmly believe that this continent is destined to be the greatest
wine-producing country in the world; and that the time is not far
distant when wine, the most wholesome and purest of all stimulating
drinks, will be within the reach of the common laborer, and take the
place of the noxious and poisonous liquors which are now the curse of
so many of our laboring men, and have blighted the happiness of so many
homes. Pure light wine I consider the best temperance agent; but as
long as bad whisky and brandy continue to be the common drink of its
citizens we can not hope to accomplish a
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