The grape culture of the United States is yet in its infancy. Although the annual wine product is estimated at nearly three millions of gallons, there can be no doubt that ere many years shall have elapsed America will rank as one of the most important wine countries of the world. California is already extending her vineyards for miles along her smiling valleys, where the clear sky and the balmy air, which are unchangeable at the season of the grape harvest, permit a degree of perfection in the fruit unattainable in any European country. Already her wines are commanding an enviable place in the markets of the world, with no apparent limits to the growing demand for them. The hillsides of the lower Ohio Valley are lined with thriving vineyards, whose rich clusters of Catawba and Isabella grapes delight the eye on every hand, and thousands of acres are now given to successful grape culture, where formerly only a few straggling vines were seen. More than five hundred thousand gallons of wine are now annually produced in the neighborhood of Cincinnati alone, and find a market in that city, and what was but a few years ago a mere experiment is now one of the chief sources of the wonderful prosperity of the Ohio Valley, and one of the most important features in the commerce of the Queen City of the West. The success which has attended this branch of our industry must be a matter of congratulation to the whole country, and the man to whose courage, energy, and liberality it is mainly due must be regarded as a public benefactor. This man, NICHOLAS LONGWORTH by name, was born at Newark, New Jersey, on the 16th of January, 1782. His father had been a man of large property, but in consequence of being a Tory during the Revolution, his possessions were confiscated, and he and his family impoverished. Young Nicholas's childhood was passed in indigence, and it is said that he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, when a mere lad, to learn the trade as a means of livelihood. However this may be, it is certain that when very young he went to South Carolina as a clerk for his elder brother. The climate of the South, however, did not suit his health, and he returned to Newark, and began the study of the law. He was poor, and the East was overcrowded, even at that early day, and offered but few inducements to a young man entirely dependent upon his own efforts. Ohio was then the "Far West," and emigration was setting in toward it rapidly. Those who had seen the country related what then seemed marvelous tales of its wonderful fertility and progress. Few professional men were seeking the distant land, and Longworth felt convinced that the services of such as did go would assuredly be in demand, and he resolved to cast his lot with the West.