The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
Venice, London, and Frankfort, Ky., five columns of telegrams, and the
usual despatch by the Atlantic cable. The "Gazette" is not less spirited
and enterprising, and both are sound, patriotic, Republican journals.
The "Enquirer," of Democratic politics, very liberally conducted, is as
unreasonable as heart could wish, and supplies the Republican papers
with many a text. The "Times" is an evening paper, Republican, and
otherwise commendable. Gentlemen who have long resided in Cincinnati
assure us that the improvement in the tone and spirit of its daily press
since the late regenerating war is most striking. It is looked to now by
the men of public spirit to take the lead in the career of improvement
upon which the city is entering. The conductors of the press here are
astonishingly rich. Think of an _editor_ having the impudence to return
the value of his estate at five millions of dollars!
Visitors to Cincinnati feel it, of course, to be a patriotic duty to
make inquiries respecting the native wine; and to facilitate the
performance of this duty, the landlord of the Burnet House publishes in
his daily bill of fare twelve varieties of American wine, from three
States, Ohio, Missouri, and California. The cheapest is the Ohio
Catawba, one dollar a bottle; the dearest is Missouri champagne, at
three dollars and a half. The wine culture, it appears, is somewhat out
of favor at present among the farmers of Ohio. A German family,
many-handed, patient, and economical, occupying a small vineyard and
paying no wages, finds the business profitable; but an American, who
lives freely, and depends upon hired assistance, is likely to fail. A
vineyard requires incessant and skilful labor. The costly preparation of
the soil, the endless prunings and hoeings, the great and watchful care
required in picking, sorting, and pressing the grapes, in making and
preserving the wine, the many perils to which the crop is exposed at
every moment of its growth and ripening, and the three years of waiting
before the vines begin to bear, all conspire to discourage and defeat
the ordinary cultivator. The "rot" is a very severe trial to human
patience. The vines look thrifty, the grapes are large and abundant, and
all goes well, until the time when the grapes, being fully grown, are
about to change color. Then a sudden blight occurs, and two thirds of
the whole crop of grapes, the result of the year's labor, wither and
spoil. The cause, probably, is the exhaustion of some elements in the
soil needful to the supreme effort of Nature to perfect her work.
Nevertheless, the patient Germans succeed in the business, and sell
their wine to good advantage to the large dealers and bottlers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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