"'The vine is a plant whose transpiration and suction is abundant and vehement, which sufficiently indicates the soil and exposition natural to it. For this reason, grounds, composed of sand, gravel stones, and rotten rocks, are excellent for its cultivation.
"'A sandy soil produces a fine pure wine. The gravelly and stony a delicate wine. Rotten and broken rocks a fumy generous wine, of a superior quality.
"'A rich, strong, compact, cold or humid soil, which is pressed down by the rains, and which the sun hardens or bakes, is essentially prejudicial to the quality of the wine.
"'The most advantageous exposition for the vine is that of a gentle slope, or side of a hill, facing east and south, on which the rays of the sun continue the longest time.
"'Hills, in the neighbourhood of the ocean and rivers, ought to be preferred to all others.' The lower parts of these hills are not so favourable to the vine as the upper, and neither are equal to the middle region, the soil being the same.
"'All trees are unfriendly to the vine, as much from their roots as their shade. All who cultivate the vine, should remember this precept of Virgil: Apertos Bacchus amat colles.—The vine flourishes in the open unshaded hills.
"'In a word, the vine ought never to be planted in soils that can produce grain, &c. because it wants nothing but heat, and thrives best in the poorest ground. This will appear ridiculous to those who look for quantity: but as to the quality of the wine, it is in strict conformity with the laws of vegetation and with experience. I must be understood to speak here of countries only whose temperatures are favourable to the success of vineyards. We must except those in more northern latitudes. These general precepts admit of no exceptions: They will be acknowledged by all those who, with good faith, and free of prejudices, have studied the cultivation of the vine. If other modes and precepts are followed, we cannot answer for the age of the vine, or the quality of the wine.'"
These views of the locality, soils, and exposures of the fine Bordeaux wines, such as the white, or Sauterne, and vin de Grave, and the red or clarets, such as La Fitte, Chateau Margaux, &c. will be left, for the present, on the public mind, with a firm confidence in their due impression, accompanied by the remarks that the difference between our temperatures, in our present wooded condition, and that of the south west of France, may be safely taken at eleven or twelve degrees; and that the progress of clearing lands and draining swamps will reduce that difference, in a few years, below ten degrees. Thus, St. Mary's, in Georgia, will ultimately prove about as warm, for vegetation, as Oporto in Portugal, and the productions of Europe, in any given latitude, may be found in, or, as we drain and clear, introduced into the United States, in latitudes nine or ten degrees farther south. The pride of all Europe is certainly the wines of the following places:
| Champagne, in latitude | 49° | N. | in Europe equal to 39° to 40° in U. S. | |||||
| Burgundy, | 48 | 38 | to | 39 | ||||
| Old Hock wine. | 49 | 39 | to | 40 | ||||
| Bordeaux, Claret, & Sauterne. | 45 | 35 | to | 36 | ||||
| Best brandy of the wine grape: Bordeaux and Cogniac, | 45 | 35 | to | 36 | ||||
| The wine districts of Europe for the finest wines from Malaga and Xeres to Epernay, in Champagne | 36¾ | to | 49 | 27¾ | to | 39 | or | 40 |
| _A Friend to the National Industry._ | ||||||||
| PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 5, 1819. | ||||||||