Page:A Treatise on the Culture of the Vine and, and the Art of Making Wine.pdf/73

, that so interesting and important an article as the vine, should have attracted particular attention.

It was to the improvement of this branch of agriculture, that the attention of the Abbé Ruzier, (the Sinclair of France), was in a particular manner directed; and had not his career been cut short, there is every reason to believe, that his practical experience, directed as it was, by scientific knowledge, would have left his countrymen less to enquire for on this subject.

The idea had occurred to him, of forming an establisbment, in which should be brought together all the varieties of vines existing in France. By a comparison of these, he proposed to discover how many differed in character, and how many, only in name—how many possesed properties essentially different, les essences veritablement differentes—and in how many, the slight differences which distinguished them from others of the species