Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/67

Rh Of such a nature are the descriptions of more than one traveller through Lombardy, and other parts of Italy, and few could visit the same scenes without participating in the feelings by which they were dictated. Prospects of a similar nature also greet and delight the traveller in many provinces of Spain, and even in the most southern districts of France, the vine is found embracing the branches of the elm and the almond, and hanging its clusters from their highest tops. But it is not in scenes like these that the vine sheds its richest juice—not all the bunches which hang in profusion from these lofty trees enjoy the maturing influence of the sun's rays, and such as reach maturity, are universally found to be destitute of those principles which fermentation converts to a generous wine.

It is thus possible by culture, to raise the creeping vine above the highest trees; nay, to change its twisted and deformed stock, to a noble trunk, which will vie in longevity with the venerable oak. Evelyn informs us, from Theophrastus, of a vine, "which had grown to that bulk and woodiness, as to make a statue of Jupiter, and columns in Juno's temple, and that, at present, it is found that the great doors of the cathedral at Ravenna are made of such vine tree planks, some of which are twelve feet long, and fifteen