and you can hardly turn over a leaf but the subject of grapes
stares you in the face, with a quiet impunity, which plainly says, "The
nation is affected with grape fever; and while our readers have grape
on the brain there is no fear of overdosing." Why, the best proof I can
give my readers that grape fever does exist to an alarming degree, is
this very book itself. Were not I and they affected with the disease, I
should never have presumed to try their patience.

But, fortunately, the remedy is within easy reach. Plant grapes, every
one of you who is thus afflicted, until our hillsides are covered with
them, and we have made our barren spots blossom as the rose.

Truly, the results we have already obtained, are cheering enough. And
yet all this has been principally achieved in the last few years, while
the nation was involved in one of the most stupendous struggles the
world ever saw, while its very existence was endangered, and thousands
upon thousands of her patriotic sons poured out their blood like water,
and the husbandman left his home; the vintner his vineyard, to fight
the battles of his country. What then shall we become now, when peace
has smiled once more upon our beloved country; and the thousands of
brave arms, who brandished the sword, sabre, or musket, have come home
once more; and their weapons have been turned into ploughshares, and
their swords into pruning hooks? When all the strong and willing hands
will clear our hillsides, and God's sun shines upon _one_ great and
united people; greater and more glorious than ever; because now they
are _truly free_. Truly the future lies before us, rich in glorious
promise; and ere long the words and the prophecy contained in the old
legend will become sober truth, and America will be, from the Atlantic
to the Pacific _one_ smiling and happy _Wineland_; where each laborer
shall sit under his own vine, and none will be too poor to enjoy the
purest and most wholesome of all stimulants, good, cheap, native
_wine_. Then drunkenness, now the curse of the nation, will disappear,
and peace and good will towards all will rule our actions. And we,
brother grape growers? Ours is this great and glorious task; let us
work unceasingly, with hand, heart, and mind; truly the object is
worthy of our best endeavors. Let those who begin to-day, remember how
easy their task with the achievements and experiments of others before
them, compared with the labors of those who were the pi