f books and other publications on
this subject, the space devoted to it in the agricultural and
horticultural journals, and especially in the increased number of
graperies and vineyards which have been erected and planted in the last
decade. There seems to be a general consciousness of the fact that, in
the struggle for wealth and the greed for wide possessions, as well as
in the inherent difficulties of our situation--thrown as we have been
upon a new and vast continent--we have too long neglected the culture of
the Vine, one of the most ancient and useful arts of life; an art which
has, in all ages, been the fruitful source of comfort and luxury, of
health and happiness, to the masses of mankind. The neglect of this
important and beautiful department of culture is the more remarkable,
since our country embraces every degree of latitude, and every variety
of climate and soil in which the grape is known to flourish.

It having been demonstrated by years of experiment, resulting in every
case in utter failure, that the foreign grape cannot be successfully
grown in the open air in the United States--the States of the Pacific
excepted--we are obliged to confine our culture to glazed structures,
erected for the purpose, where an atmosphere similar to the vine-growing
regions of Europe can be maintained, and that bane of the foreign grape,
the mildew, avoided.

The culture of choice foreign grapes under glass in this country dates
from before the War of Independence, from which time to this the
beautiful but perishable Chasselas, the delicious Frontignac, and the
luscious Hamburg, have been, here and there, carefully cultivated and
ripened. But these efforts have been chiefly confined to the vicinity of
large cities, and the management has mainly been kept in the hands of
foreign gardeners, who have imported themselves from the vine regions of
Europe, to instruct us in the arts and mysteries of grape-growing.

That many of these are men of great practical experience in the art, we
know full well; but, however skillful they may have been in foreign
countries, their success in our climate has been achieved only by
discarding many of their preconceived ideas, and adapting their practice
to agree with the peculiarities of our climate. When the public shall
have learned that the culture of grapes under glass is only a plain and
simple pursuit or pastime, which any one of ordinary capacity can
comprehend and successfully carry o