blishing a
vineyard, but failed, as they attempted to plant the foreign vine. In
1801, they removed to a spot, which they called Vevay, in Switzerland
County, Indiana, on the Ohio, forty-five miles below Cincinnati. Here
they planted native vines, especially the Cape, or Schuylkill Muscadel,
and met with better success. But, after about forty years' experience,
they seem to have become discouraged, and their vineyards have now
almost disappeared.

These were the first crude experiments in American grape culture; and
from some cause or another, they seem not to have been encouraging
enough to warrant their continuation. But a new impetus was given to
this branch of industry, by the introduction of the Catawba, by Major
ADLUM, of Georgetown, D.C., who thought, that by so doing, he conferred
a greater benefit upon the nation than he would have done, had he paid
the national debt. It seems to have been planted first on an extensive
scale by NICHOLAS LONGWORTH, near Cincinnati, whom we may justly call
one of the founders of American grape culture. He adopted the system of
leasing parcels of unimproved land to poor Germans, to plant with
vines; for a share, I believe, of one-half of the proceeds. It was his
ambition to make the Ohio the Rhine of America, and he has certainly
done a good deal to effect it. In 1858, the whole number of acres
planted in grapes around Cincinnati, was estimated, by a committee
appointed for that purpose, at twelve hundred acres, of which Mr.
LONGWORTH owned one hundred and twenty-two and a half acres, under
charge of twenty-seven tenants. The annual produce was estimated by the
committee at no less than two hundred and forty thousand gallons, worth
about as many dollars then. We may safely estimate the number of acres
in cultivation there now, at two thousand. Among the principal grape
growers there, I will mention Messrs. ROBERT BUCHANAN, author of an
excellent work on grape culture, MOTTIER, BOGEN, WERK, REHFUSS, DR.
MOSHER, etc.

Well do I remember, when I was a boy, some fourteen years old, how
often my father would enter into conversation with vintners from the
old country, about the feasibility of grape culture in Missouri. He
always contended that grapes should succeed well here, as the woods
were full of wild grapes, some of very fair quality, and that this
would indicate a soil and climate favorable to the vine. They would
ridicule the idea, and assert that labor was too high here, even