Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/44

4 influence of a parching atmosphere, as in some parts of Persia, where, by means of irrigation, the vine is said to be cultivated under a temperature, whose mean is, 82 degrees of Fahrenheit.

Vineyards are also to be found, and a little wine is made, as far north as the 52d degree, but on either side of the above boundaries, the wine is of a very inferior character, or requires, for its production, too much expense and care, to be a profitable article of culture. The best wines are made between the 40th and 50th degrees of latitude.

But though the climate impresses a general and indelible character on its productions, there are circumstances which modify its action: and it is only by studying, separately and carefully, the influence of each of these, that we can recognise the effect of climate in all its strength. It is thus, that we sometimes see, under the same climate, very different qualities of wine, because the differences of soil, exposure, or culture, modify the immediate influence of this grand agent.

The influence of climate, is in nothing better illustrated than in the changes which vine plants undergo, when transported to a foreign country, where the same method of culture may be pursued, on a soil of a similar nature, without the wine produced having any analogy to that which they bore on their native soil. Thus, many of