• During the past two or more years every journal, agricultural, horticultural, political, literary, and religious, throughout the length and breadth of the States, has had more or less to say in regard to the cultivation of the grape and its conversion into wine. The grape and its ultimates have been the great items of discussion in all horticultural associations; numerous new books have been published, and altogether our people have appeared as one whole, ambitious to exhibit the United States as equal to, if not surpassing, the best wine-producing districts of the world. This is all laudable, provided we exhibit the product to sustain our assertions. To see how far we have done, and are doing so, is the object of our present writing.

Some six or seven years since we set about a close observation and examination of our native wines, and wherever we could hear of a maker of wine who had even a shadow of credit, we sent for a sample. We have visited many wine cellars, have attended exhibitions, and although not always "ye committee man," yet have always obtained an opportunity to examine the wines exhibited.

And now, first, what is wine? Is it the pure juice of the grape fermented? or is it a little grape-juice and sugar-water - or such other substances as the maker deems will make a pleasant drink and sell?

For the credit and reputation of ourselves and our country, we must take the first stand-point. Pure wine is entirely the expressed juice of the grape fermented and void of addition of anything whatever. The moment we drop this, we open the passway for every style of preparation and addition. He who tells us that there can be no harm in adding sugar and water before fermentation, in order to bring up its grade alcoholic to a keeping point, or that by such addition he has increased the volume of his measure, and reduced the acid that would otherwise have made his product objectionable, certainly can not tell us that he has with his addition increased the healthful tonic qualities that lie in the fermented juice of the grape alone, and for which it alone is prized. Chemically there may be found no injurious matter in such preparation, but it is strictly a preparation, and not pure wine.

If we were to allow as wine this preparation of sugar and water addition, then we would be ready for the next process of adding sugar only, which is the more common practice among those who make only small quantities, and of various qualities and alcoholic strength, according as they increase or decrease the quantities of sugar to the gallon of must. Next we go on to the maker who with one third grape-juice, one third cider, sugar-water, acetate of lead, oil of rose, etc., makes us drinks from the same cask; and one he gives us with a slight pink shade, which he calls his pink wine; the other he gives us clear and white as water, and both, if we drink freely, give us an intolerable headache, from which we do not recover in three or four days. ' So much for this opening of the gap to admit as wine anything but the grape-juice fermented alone. "Oh, but," says one, umy grape-juice won't keep unless I add sugar or spirit or something!" Very well, then, add it, and offer it for sale as grape cordial, stating on your brand the amount of sugar or alcohol that has been added to each gallon of must, but don't brand our country any longer with offering a preparation as wine which is a lie to the knowledge of every intelligent wine-taster 1 Do this with the product of such grapes as you now have, but go to work and plant and cultivate such varieties as will enable you to make from their must alone a wine creditable to yourself, and to assist in exhibiting our soil and climate as truly capable of growing grapes that of themselves will make the best of pure wine.

"With these remarks on "What is wine?" we will next take, "Where is it?" And as we have said our examinations of samples have been, during the past two years especially, rather extensive, but with one or two exceptions we can not answer the question. Delaware has been sent us from Cincinnati that evidently had been sugared; from Missouri we have had it of several makers, and not one pure; from Illinois we have had it, and all doctored. The only pure Delaware we have ever met that was wine, has been some of John E. Mottier's make, and some made by Lewis Harmes, Put-in-Bay, Ohio. Now we do not believe there is any reason for ever making any other than pure wine from the Delaware grape, because the grape has in itself all the qualities to make a good wine, and it has the character of fully ripening its fruit in nearly all sections.

Concord we have had from many sources. All through the eastern and northern sections its must is too light in sugar and too strong in acids to make a pleasant wins, or even one that will keep, except in the temperature of wine cellars. And hence all our samples have had sugar added, under the too common impression that such was wine. In south Illinois and Missouri the Concord can be grown to make a pleasant, light claret wine, with, as we think, however, too much acid, but nevertheless very good, and as such we have drank of it; but, in nine cases out of ten, when received from that region of the Concord's best success, it has there been increased and toned down into a drink by addition of sugar-water.

The Diana, from all sources that we have received it, with one single exception, has been a sweetened preparation. That one was an exhibit on a small scale of a few hundred gallons, where the fruit was allowed to hang until fully ripe, then laid out and exposed on tables for a few days, pressed, and resulting in a very fine wine of delicate, rich, aromatic character and flavor.

Isabella, although ranking higher in weight of must than Concord throughout the East, North, and Western States, yet has so much acid that it does not, except in some one or two localities, make a wine that will keep well or be pleasant to drink, and as a consequence, everywhere almost that we have drank of it, we have found in it an addition of sweetening material.

The Catawba is the grape on which the reputation of the country so far stands as a wine-producing country, and it is to be regretted wine pressers have not as a whole better understood its capabilities and given us thereby a grade even higher than we now have for a pure and pleasant yet sufficiently strong dry white wine. Most vignerons gather and press it before it is ripe; others sell all the best bunches from their vineyards for table use and then press the remainder; very few leave all the fruit to ripen as long as it is possible for it to remain on the vine, and then gather and select, so as to make two, aye, even four classes of wine from one vineyard, viz., the first and second runnings of the selected grapes, two, and the first and second runnings of the culls - four.

A very large number of those who make wine even from this grape, owing to their want of care, find the must with too heavy a percentage of acid, and add sugar; but nevertheless there are many thousands of gallons of really pure Catawba wine made at the West, and among these good ones, the very best we have ever drank we received last fall from George Leick, Esq., of Cleveland, Ohio.

The Iona is said by its originator to make a superior wine, and we shall be glad to see it prove so; but the statements he makes of its weight of must, percentage of sugar, etc., do not compare well with the record of a test from specimen fruits presented by him at Cleveland last fall, and which fruits before the test were declared as over-ripe, and with difficulty kept until the exhibition. That test gave 79° as the weight of must, by Oecshle's scale, which reduced would give us 18 1/10 of sugar, which again brought to spirit would give 9 per cent., which, if there was not too much acid, would make a pleasant light wine; but when we find this same test giving 9 8/10 of acid, we have some reason to doubt its great value as a wine grape.

"Wine claimed to be made from the Ives seedling has recently been sent around the country, in sample bottles, and some of our most able journals have given place to records of its superior value and the high prices at which large quantities of it have been sold, viz., $4 25 per gallon. We have tasted now - we have done so before of it, and our conviction then was and is now, that grapes which only yield 64° to 65° of must, by Oecshle's scale, when converted into wine, in order to reach the condition we see it in, must have had sugar added to it. In two cases where we have drank of it, as specimen bottles, there was to us every evidence of a mixture of Norton's Virginia, and with which Ives may be made into a good wine. And this, by the way, is the great secret and valuable knowledge of an honest wine dealer, for in mixing pure wine he deteriorates nothing, but only raises the character of one and reduces the other to a uniform grade. This, however, is no child's play, and there are few men of fine taste enough to practice it successfully.

We lately saw a good judge of wine quite deceived by what he supposed a Delaware, that in fact was only a mixture of some Rhine wines.

Wine from the Norton's Virginia grape we have generally found nearly pure; it is so rich in itself of all the qualities that make up a good red wine, that there is no necessity of adding anything thereto; but its volume may be, and sometimes is, increased by dealers, by means of sugar-water before fermentation, reducing its richness and lessening its bouquet, although not destroying it.

There is a class of mixtures called California Wines put up, neatly and prettily labeled, and sold by almost every druggist throughout the States. We never enter a drug shop and see one or more of these labels and placards, but that we feel almost like accusing the proprietor of doing willful injury to his fellow-men. It is well known hundreds go to the druggist for liquors for medicinal purposes, there expecting to get only a pure article, and these so-called California Wines are so great impositions on the name as already to supply a source of laughter and amusement wherever they are spoken of among knowing wine men.