es is yet in its infancy. Although
the annual wine product is estimated at nearly three millions of
gallons, there can be no doubt that ere many years shall have elapsed
America will rank as one of the most important wine countries of the
world. California is already extending her vineyards for miles along her
smiling valleys, where the clear sky and the balmy air, which are
unchangeable at the season of the grape harvest, permit a degree of
perfection in the fruit unattainable in any European country. Already
her wines are commanding an enviable place in the markets of the world,
with no apparent limits to the growing demand for them. The hillsides of
the lower Ohio Valley are lined with thriving vineyards, whose rich
clusters of Catawba and Isabella grapes delight the eye on every hand,
and thousands of acres are now given to successful grape culture, where
formerly only a few straggling vines were seen. More than five hundred
thousand gallons of wine are now annually produced in the neighborhood
of Cincinnati alone, and find a market in that city, and what was but a
few years ago a mere experiment is now one of the chief sources of the
wonderful prosperity of the Ohio Valley, and one of the most important
features in the commerce of the Queen City of the West. The success
which has attended this branch of our industry must be a matter of
congratulation to the whole country, and the man to whose courage,
energy, and liberality it is mainly due must be regarded as a public
benefactor.

This man, NICHOLAS LONGWORTH by name, was born at Newark, New Jersey, on
the 16th of January, 1782. His father had been a man of large property,
but in consequence of being a Tory during the Revolution, his
possessions were confiscated, and he and his family impoverished. Young
Nicholas's childhood was passed in indigence, and it is said that he was
apprenticed to a shoemaker, when a mere lad, to learn the trade as a
means of livelihood. However this may be, it is certain that when very
young he went to South Carolina as a clerk for his elder brother. The
climate of the South, however, did not suit his health, and he returned
to Newark, and began the study of the law.

He was poor, and the East was overcrowded, even at that early day, and
offered but few inducements to a young man entirely dependent upon his
own efforts. Ohio was then the "Far West," and emigration was setting in
toward it rapidly. Those who had seen the country related