AGRICULTURAL REPORT. V

Other chemists were also consulted or employed in different parts of the Union, to determine practically the feasibility of crystallizing the juice of the Chinese sugar-cane—a question, as will be seen, which has been fully and satisfactorily solved and put at rest.

An agent was also employed during the past season to visit Arkansas, Texas, and the neighboring Territories, for the purpose of selecting cuttings of the native grape-vines, with a view of testing their adaptation to wine-making and for table use in various sections of the Union. In his journeys over a vast extent of country, travel- ling much of the distance on foot through regions wild, rugged, often without roads, and presenting no shelter to the wayfarer, even at. night, he succeeded in collecting several thousand cuttings of the best varieties of vine indigenous to those tracts, which have been placed in proper hands for direct experiment in various localities, as well as im the forcing-house of Government on the public grounds in Washington, in order that they may take root preparatory for future distribution.

The manufacture of wine from our native grapes, it is well known, was practised not only by the French settlers on the Illinois river, but by several of the Indian tribes, who regaled themselves with the „must,““ or juice of wild grapes. Experiments in wine-making, both with the European grape and our own species, have also been made at various periods in other parts of the territory of the United States; but the designs of those interested have never been brought to perfection with the foreign grape, California and New Mexico excepted, owing, it is believed, to the unsuitableness of our climate, which, on the contrary, is favorable to the native varieties. Not- withstanding these difficulties, many patriotic individuals have per- sisted in the endeavor to make this a wine country by establishing nurseries and vineyards, their motives, in many instances, doubtless being influenced by a desire to promote the cause of temperance, and consequently of health and happiness. The past experience of the world has shown that inebriety, and the attendant evils produced by the usè of distilled and factitious liquors, as beverages, disappear in

proportion as pure wine becomes accessible to the people. Within the territory of the United States, it has been stated that

there are at least forty well-defined botanical species, including