Hence we learn, though nature employs both the autumnal and vernal seasons, yet there are lesser heats with which she prepares the first juice of grapes, a stronger power of the sun she requires to form the fruit, and a greater than either to ripen it. We have investigated the lowest degrees of heat, in which grapes are produced, and nearly the highest they ever receive to ripen them. Let us call the first the _germinating_ degrees, and the last those of _maturation_. If nearly 58 be the lowest of the one, and 126 the highest of the other, and if a certain power of acids is necessary for the germination of the grapes, which must be counterbalanced by an equal power of oils raised by the heat of the sun for their maturation, then the medium of these two numbers, or 92, maybe said to be a degree at which this fruit cannot possibly be produced, and inferior to that by which it should be maturated. At Panama the lowest degree of heat in the shade is 72, to which 20 being added, for the sun’s beams, the sum will be 92, and consequently no grapes can grow there, except the vines be placed in the shade. If we recollect that we can scarcely make wine, which will preserve itself, of grapes produced in England, we shall be induced to think, that the reason of this defect is the want of the high degrees of heat. Our sun seldom raises the thermometer to 100 degrees, and that but for a short continuance. Our medium heat is far inferior to 92, and hence we see, at several distant terms in summer, new germinated grapes, but seldom any perfectly ripe. These observations, the use of which, in brewing, we will endeavour to apply, likewise point out to us, what part of our plantations are fit to produce this fruit, and to what degree of perfection. A research made for each constituent part forming grapes, as well as the proportion they bear to one another, at first sight, appears to be an eligible method to discover the nature of wines; but in every vegetable their parts are mixed and interwoven, and every degree of heat, acting on them, finds these so blended, as to render their division too imperfect for such enquiry to be made with sufficient accuracy, to deduce therefrom the rules of an art. In the producing, ripening, and fermenting the juice of the grapes, as well as in forming beers and ales, the element of fire so superlatively influences and governs every progressive act, as to occasion some remarkable difference in their appearance: from, hence, then, we may expect the information we want, and be enabled to discover the laws by which Nature forms her wines.